By the Grace of God
by LordDerrick
Summary: One lone night, ten years after his imprisonment in Azkaban, Harry Potter ascends to a status higher than he could ever dream. In the darkness of his cell, Harry Potter remembers how they condemned him, how they sent an eleven year old boy to prison for a crime he did not commit. He remembers... and seeks justice. The King has returned. Dark-Harry/multi, Super-Powered.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. JK Rowling owns it all, and I make no money from it.**

**By the Grace of God**

_**Chapter One**_

The silence swam around him mockingly. It was almost as if the dank, lonely cell knew who he was and the crimes he had been charge with committing. But that couldn't be true, could it? Brick and stone do not breathe, do not think. They could not know. Then again, in the wizarding world, things are never as they should be.

Wizarding world… He latched onto that thought. Yes, wizard… That's what he was: a wizard. Even the dark cell could not rob him of that; even after ten years, it could not take away his identity. It could not destroy who he was, not permanently.

For the first time in several years, the wretched, pathetic shell of a man remembered who he was. Cold green eyes peered between locks of matted, slimy black hair and stared out between the bars of his cell deep within the walls of Azkaban prison. Every detail returned to him; every moment of agony and torturous betrayal that had led him to ten years of suffering locked behind bars on an isolated island far from civilization. He remembered…

Quirrell. Quirinus Quirrell. His victim.

Wait, that wasn't right. Not a victim. He was the victim. He hadn't murdered Quirrell. The spirit of the Dark Lord had possessed the professor. He was just defending himself from the Dark Lord's attacks. He hadn't meant to…

But no one believed him. They said that Voldemort, the Dark Lord, was dead. Dumbledore tried to argue on his behalf, but they didn't want to believe the truth. Their fear clouded their judgment.

And Snape. Professor Snape.

The potions professor had claimed that Quirrell was only trying to stop anyone from taking the Sorceror's Stone, trying to defend from the very darkness that possessed him. That testimony gave the court all they needed to ignore the truth. It gave them the scapegoat they needed to explain the events… the sacrifice for the common good… the sacrifice in the form of one who had already lost so much… it gave them…

Harry Potter. The Boy-who-lived. Him. Now, he was in Azkaban.

_No!_

The air in the cell suddenly thinned and dried. Harry Potter stood, bones cracking and creaking as they were extended after years of disuse. Ragged, torn grey robes fell around him, hanging down to his bare feet. His muscles shouldn't work at all. By now, they should be atrophied. He should at least feel pain, discomfort. He felt nothing.

Nothing but rage.

Harry Potter raised his hands in front of his face. The dim twilight that leaked into his cell outlined the silhouette of scabbed, filthy skin. He flexed his fingers. They responded with slow, rhythmic movements that were stiff but effective. He stretched the fingers apart as far they would go then reached deep down inside himself to the shell that he had hidden within the past ten years. With a force of will he shoved that shell to the forefront, against the walls of his mind, and watched as it shattered. As it broke, blue-white lightening flickered between his fingertips, sizzling as it arced under his control.

No, he would not be a prisoner. He had secrets, secrets buried so deep that no one at Hogwarts ever knew, secrets so deep that he had forgotten, secrets that would tear the wizarding world apart.

Harry thrust his hand forward. Surges of lightening exploded from his hands and shattered the cell's barred door in a burst of shrieking metal. He smiled and stepped between the smoldering ruins.

* * *

Orian Throathammer was not a normal goblin, at least not by wizard standards. He stood almost seven feet tall and weighed somewhere upwards of 350 hundred pounds. He was built solidly, with little fat and mounds of muscles. Most goblins, at least the ones seen by wizards, were short stumpy characters with the uncanny ability to leer a human into fits of worry and anxiety. Other than their menacing appearances, they were generally harmless.

Orian Throathammer was not harmless. The thick blanket of rippling muscle coupled with the heavy broadsword strapped to his back proved that much. Include that his name had been earned in the triumph of many battles during which puny humans and elves alike were crushed beneath the hammer that was his strength, and it was easy to see why him and his kind stayed out of the limelight of wizarding society. Wizards would be too terrified to let true goblins interact with them. There would be wars, wars his nation could sorely afford.

Once, long ago, the wizards had tried to impose laws on the lesser goblin-folk. The lesser ones had rebelled and fought hard against the wizards to win their freedoms. The bank Gringotts had been created as an attempted peace treaty by the wizards, but the Lords of Goblin-folk refused to accept the wizards' restitution. They demanded a means of permanently securing the lesser goblins from the corrupt wizard government.

After many long days and nights, a contract could not be reached, and the two races descended into war once more, a war that would be remembered differently by each side. In the end, after the blood-shed threatened the survivability of both races, a third party had to intervene, a party led by the greatest of mortals, the half-fae Merlin.

Merlin stormed the goblin stronghold that housed the High Lords and beat them into submission. By goblin law, Merlin, being part fae and therefore one of the Others, had rightfully challenged the High Lords for rule of the Goblin Nation and won. Noble and proud, the goblin lords submitted themselves to the rule of Merlin and his descendents until one could challenge and overthrow him.

After seizing the authority of the Goblin Nation, Merlin schemed his way through the ranks of the magical world and took their government into his own hands. In the end, all families recognized him as the proper ruler of magical Britain, Ireland, and France. None attempted to contest him.

So Merlin built the Chair of the Rightful and crowned himself king in order to stop the wars between the wizarding world and the Goblin Nation. For many years the peace lasted, and many of the archmage's descendents ruled with honor and fairness that rivaled the legendary rulers of both races. For a time, none came against the House of Emrys.

But as with all good things, the peace came to an end. Argois II, great-great-great-grandson of Merlin died in the year 1565, and no heir could be found. The crown dissolved into a disputed title that none of any race could rightfully claim. Before long, after a long string of pitiful rulers, the races began to war again. The wizards tried to force their will on the lesser goblins, and the lesser goblins fought against the control of the wizards.

In the end, it had been him, Orian Throathammer, who had driven the wizards away with the unleashed fury of the goblin hordes. Now, he stood guardian over the Nation, waiting patiently until the goblins would need defending from wizards once more. He would be ready for that time. If need arose, he would be ready to kill and feast on the carcasses of the dead until every last wizard again feared the sight of goblin-kind.

"_Hem… Hem…"_

Orian turned on his heel, his face a mask of emotionless calm. The plate body armor he wore clang as he spun. The black goblin steel remained unscratched despite the centuries of battle it had seen. The fire from the hearth in the small room reflected against the metal, making it glow with the image of burning fire.

The woman in the doorway was skinny. Most humans were skinny by goblin ideals, but she was extremely so, petite was the word humans used. She wore her brunette hair tied into a bun. Thinly rimmed glasses sat on her shapely nose but did not hide the bright surprise in her blue eyes or the admiration she clearly felt for the Goblin Lord. Her high cheekbones and smooth, angular jaw flexed and her full lips turned upwards in a small smile as he acknowledged her, a smile that made even the hardened warrior soften.

It was out of place in the deep caverns of the goblins' world.

She bowed deeply; the pantsuit and blouse she wore moved perfectly with her figure, as if the fabric curved around the shape of her body like water.

"My Lord Orian," she said, her voice ringing in melodiously softness. "I bring news."

Orian nodded and growled. "I hope it was worth you disturbing my day, Miranda. I have little free time."

She bowed again. "I assure you, Dreadlord, I would not have brought this to you under any other circumstances but during that time which is most private."

"Speak your news, girl," he barked, his patience wearing thin. "Humans, even you, bother me when it is this early in the morning."

The woman, Miranda, smiled. She knew better than that. Lord Orian adored her more than he favored most goblins save his mate. "The beacon has been lit, my lord."

Out of all the things Miranda could have said, this was the last thing the Goblin Lord expected. He cleared his voice, unable to speak for just a moment, and said, "Be careful with what you say. Are you sure your human eyes have not misinterpreted what they actually saw?"

Miranda shook her head, still smiling. "No, my lord. Even now the Ways of the King are being lit."

"By whose order?" Orian snapped. Who would dare order such a thing without his approval? If this turned out to be a hoax then thousands of goblins would have to be told that their hopes were in vain, that they still had to hide in their secret cavernous world beneath the surface. The Moridunum Beacon was created by Merlin himself as a way of identifying his power so that none could take his form and steal the throne. If it were lit, it meant that the power of Merlin had been used and one of his blood still lived.

An heir to the throne.

"None, my lord. The Ways are being lit without an original source. They are springing to life as if touched by magic."

Orian frowned. Something inside him twisted and flopped, desperately trying to be released. But dare he release such thoughts? Dare he hope for that which should never have taken place?

"And the beacon?"

Miranda nodded. "Come and see for yourself, my lord."

Normally, Orian would have been angry for the human's brashness at daring to order him, but his anger could not swell right then, not at a moment such as that when the whole of his realm might change, when the whole of the world might changed.

He pushed passed Miranda, who stepped away with a bow, and walked from the door to his chambers into the great opening outside. The caves opened into a mammoth cavern from which hung thousands of stalactites, all glistening with precious metals awaiting to be mined. A river of clear, clean water ran through the center of the cavern, sending echoes of running water bouncing from wall to wall. At the farthest end of the cavern, almost directly across from his door, rose from the ground a formation of crystal shaped into a basin ten times Orian's size. Within in it burned a blue fire.

A magical fire.

"The Moridunum Beacon is lit," he whispered, his voice unable to rise any louder. It did not need to; for, every goblin and orc within the great cavern was already staring in awe at the Beacon. They stared because it could only mean one thing.

From behind him, in a small, but confident voice, Miranda said, "A king has been found."

Orian only nodded. After so long, the House of Emrys had returned.

**A/N: Well, here it is. Let's see what you think.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. JK Rowling owns it all, and I make no money from it.**

_**Chapter Two**_

Harry Potter stood in the empty corridor and waited. He did not try to flee as most escaping a prison might. It was not his intention to escape. Escape meant hiding. It meant running. He would not run. The wizarding world would face him. They would face what they had made him into, and they would fear him.

Running was not an option.

_Drip… Drip…_

Water. It was the only noise. Nothing else dared to make a sound. The eerie silence was enough to grate on the nerves of even the most patient, and stoic of people, but Harry acted as though he did not notice it. That was the furthest thing from the truth. He noticed it acutely. He reveled in it.

Silence was his comfort. It was the blanket he wrapped himself in during those moments when the reality of his situation descended on him. Now, it was a reminder that he did not need people to survive. He did not have to rely on others to be there when he fell. He had learned young that even the most well meaning could do him harm. After all, the well meaning had garnered him a place in Azkaban without even realizing their error until too late.

Suddenly, he felt a tug on his mind and body, a draining that reached down to the core of his soul and tugged at the hopelessness hidden there. He smiled. His captors, his retainers, were coming. He raised his hand. They would experience his wrath before any others.

The first dementor glided around the corner, its tattered black robes billowing ominously around it. A groaning welled from within the shadowy hood and traveled the space between it and Harry, striking the Boy-who-lived with the cold chill of its soul-reaping power. Its bony, skeletal hands stretched out to grab him, but Harry was prepared.

White, hot lightening burst from his hands and ploughed into the dementor. Within the magic he poured every ounce of hatred and anger that had been building since he was a small child. Every memory of the Dursleys torturing him and every recollection of hours spent whimpering in a cold Azkaban cell boiled to a frothing roll and charged out of him, unleashing torrents of magical energy stronger than any that had visited Azkaban since its construction.

The bolts arced and bounced across the creature's body. The Dementor threw back what had to be its head and let forth a bloodcurdling scream that spread through the prison. But Harry was not done. He strode forward and grabbed the creature on each shoulder and pulled with every bit of strength he could muster. The Dementor struggled to regain control, to dislodge itself from the beast that grabbed it. Harry would not budge; he would not be denied. His eyes widened in a crazed madness, and he yelled, ripping his vocal cords as they were activated for the first time in almost a decade. It did not matter, because the sound that came from him was not of this world or the next. It existed only in a time and place of his making, of his creation, and from that creation he brought forth his strength.

A great tearing noise, wet and squishing, joined in his screams and in a burst of red-orange flames, Harry Potter ripped apart the Dementor with his bare hands. The Dementor corpse crumbled and faded in the flames.

Two aurors came around the corner just as Harry dropped the now empty Dementor robes. Shocked rippled across their features as they looked from the ruined robes and the Boy-who-lived. A golden light emanated from his skin as he stepped forward in long, quick strides as if neither the incarceration nor the exuberant amount of magic he had just used had affected him in the slightest.

The aurors brandished their wands, signaled for backup, and hurled spells at Harry. Both were advanced in their career. They were highly trained professionals with experience in taking down even the strongest of dark wizards, save for the Dark Lord himself. Both had seen action against inner-circle deatheaters. They could best most in single-handed combat. But this foe was different, and they knew it the second their eyes met his. Even in the heat of the battle they could not focus on his eyes, unable to bare the raging fire within them.

Harry saw the spells before they were coming. He could see the intent as the magic raced down the wand and knew how to stop them. They were not strong enough to stand against him. As the spells left the tips of the wands, he forced his will forward as if projecting it into a solid shield. The spells collided with it, and he felt them tugging at his awareness, trying to overpower the defense he had prepared, but they were weak compared to him. He ripped through the strands of errant magic like they were fireworks sent of by muggle children. They dissipated in showers of flashes that exploded around him as he walked forward.

The aurors panicked and dived. Neither had ever heard of magic like that.

Harry reached forward with his arms as the aurors tried to run and tightened his fist. He pulled the fist back towards him, and the aurors were yanked hard onto their backs. He held out a single hand, and their wands jumped into it.

Both aurors cringed, curled into a ball, and closed their eyes, awaiting the pain of their death, praying that God would protect their families from such a monster as the one before them. However, all they felt as Harry Potter walked by were the prickles of splintered wood as the remains of their wands rained down. After several endless minutes, when they finally dared to look up, Harry Potter was gone.

* * *

Albus Dumbledore was sitting behind his desk at the Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The year was beginning in a month and he still had a great deal to do. Most of his summer had already been devoted to tracing Voldemort through his new hiding spots inside the lush forests of the Indus Valley. Many villagers had reported seeing a terrible spirit roaming the valley and possessing members of their families. More than one villager had been found left for dead, only a dry husk of a corpse remaining as the Dark Lord moved on to its next victim.

Dumbledore sighed and held his head in his hands, rubbing his temples with his fingertips. At 120 years, Dumbledore had seen more than most and dealt with more darkness than almost anyone alive. It was he who had contested Gellert Grindelwald's reign of terror, and it was he who had led the movement to resist the machinations of Lord Voldemort. Now, it was he who was forced again to deal with the rising tide that could only result in the Dark Lord's rebirth.

He knew that Voldemort was looking for something, a way to regain a body, and he knew that Voldemort had to be getting closer. The search had led the Dark Lord from Albania, through most of Eastern Europe, across the deserts of the Middle East, and finally to the birthplace of wizarding magic. Unfortunately, Dumbledore had no idea what, exactly, Voldemort could find there. And that, if anything, was the most terrifying aspect.

The old professor sighed and stroked his long silver beard. Still, it fell on him to ensure that the Dark Lord did not return. It was the only way left to contain Voldemort. If he were to regain his body, then the wizarding world would be facing the unrestricted power of a virtual immortal. The prophecy clearly linked Voldemort with Harry Potter, the boy he had failed to protect. Only Harry could kill him. But now the child rotted in Azkaban, most likely powerless and insane, while Dumbledore sat idly by, unable to act. His hands were tied. The courts had made their decision despite his fervent protests, and he could not oppose the courts. To do so would deny the authority of the government, and that could have any worse effects on the world than Lord Voldemort.

A soft knock on his office door brought him from his musings.

Dumbledore cleared his throat and sat up. He might be old and tired, but people still looked to him. He had to project the image of strength and courage. He was a rallying sign for the wizarding world in a time that was increasingly dark and horrible. It was a darkness that had very little to do with the stain of Lord Voldemort.

"McGonagall, Headmaster," one of the many portraits littering his wall whispered.

Dumbledore smiled and nodded in thanks. "Please, come in, Professor McGonagall."

The door creaked open and a woman with pulled back hair and overly stern eyes entered. She was shaking her head. "One day I will discover how you always know who is on the other side of this door, Albus."

The Headmaster smiled. "I have already told you more than once, my dear professor. It is magic." He stole a quick wink at the portrait that had spoken, but when McGonagall looked up at him, she saw only the ever-present twinkle glistening behind half-moon spectacles and the smile of a very amused old man.

She huffed and sat down. "Yes, yes, so you have said. Now, listen, I have something important to discuss. The Weasley twins-"

"-have my full confidence that they will make wonderful teachers."

McGonagall let out an exasperated sighed. "Albus, I know you have a soft spot for the Weasley family, but you can't expect those two to keep their act together long enough to create an effective learning environment. They will tear down the school brick by brick!"

Dumbledore held up his hand. "Yes, and I think-"

A buzzing from the fireplace interrupted his reply. Green flames spurred to life atop the pit. Almost instantly, a face formed in the flames. "Dumbledore!" the face yelled.

The Headmaster stared back at the excited face of the Minister of Magic and knew his night was about to get a lot busier than addressing the complaints of his dedicated deputy headmistress.

"Yes, Cornelius. I am here with Professor McGonagall. We were just discussing Fred and George Weasley. You know, they are the twin sons of Arthur Weasley, the Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Department," Dumbledore said pleasantly.

"I don't have time to talk about that, Dumbledore!" Cornelius Fudge blustered. "Were in a crisis, man! There's a massive security breach at Azkaban! The DMLE is getting distress calls left and right!"

Dumbledore's mood turned very somber, very suddenly. He stood and walked over to the fireplace with speed a man his age should not normally possess. "Which prisoner?"

Fudge gulped, his eyes panicked and wide. "Harry Potter!"

* * *

"Lord Orian! This is preposterous!"

Orian Throathammer was tired of the arguing. Ever since the beacon had come to life, goblin lords left and right were trying to argue why they shouldn't swear fealty to the House of Emrys. Orian hated weakness, and he hated cowards. Only a coward would refuse to support their rightful king without cause. He had to set an example.

Orian slapped the yelling goblin across the face. "You fool! Do you not see the fire? The blood of Emrys has been awakened. Your rightful liege lord has been found and you wish to stain this nation with dishonor!"

The goblin reeled back and stumbled under the strength or Orian's blow. The blow hadn't been hard enough to seriously hurt the goblin, but it wounded his pride. Orian had meant for it to. He had also meant for the affronted goblin to act a certain way, so he was not surprised when said goblin pushed off the floor and leapt at him.

Orian stepped to the side only enough to drop his back leg back slightly before he thrust out his arm and caught the goblin in the chest. He twisted his body and countered the momentum of the goblin's leap, bringing him down on the cavern's stone floor with enough force that the stone cracked underneath the goblin's hard body. Orian's arm pinned him against the ground and bore down on his throat.

"Listen well, Urik Handsaw. It is Orian Throathammer who rules this nation, not you!" His mouth opened wide, exposing a jaw full of sharp teeth and four large, menacing fangs from which saliva dripped. "Challenge me again, and I will gut you for the crows. Do you understand?"

Orian knew the answer already. No goblin, especially a goblin lord, would ignore a front such as that. Their honor was challenged by it, and goblins did not agree with their honor being challenged.

"I know that you will die today," Urik spat and tried to stab Orian with a hidden knife produced from somewhere on his heavy armor.

Again, Orian was ready. He jumped back from the knife and bludgeoned Urik's elbow with his fist. There was a loud crack and the arm caved. Urik cried out and tried to roll and stab at Orian again, but the goblin lord was already on his feet. He yanked the broadsword from his back and listened as the singing blade tore through the air and sliced through Urik's neck in a splatter of blood and fluid. The flailing goblin twitched once and lay still as his head rolled away from his body.

Orian stood and held his sword out. Before him, the assembled Goblin Nation, at least what could fit in the cavern and be gathered on such notice, roared in support of their Dreadlord. Swords battered against armor, goblin and orc stomped the ground, and fire burst from the staves of shamans.

"This night," Orian began, his voice a roar even greater than that of the assembled, "will begin the reckoning! This night, we go forth to reclaim our place in the world! We leave these dark tunnels and empty sewers to join our brethren and pledge fealty to our king! This night we render justice and renew our honor!"

His voice reached a crescendo with the last part, and he finished with one last shouted order. "Go now! Retrieve our king!"

The goblins roared again and the assembled ranks began to spread to allow him passage to the front of the army. He raised his sword again and the war horns blew, echoing from wall to wall and shaking the earth. The Orcneas marched to battle once more.

**A/N: Thoughts?**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. JK Rowling owns it all, and I make no money from it.**

_**Chapter Three**_

They did not know him. They had never taken the time to understand him. In truth, he had never let them. He did not want to be known. For that, he had his reasons, reasons so fundamental to his being that they trickled in waves to the very inner-workings of his soul and bound themselves there. Yes, he had reasons.

Humans could not dream to comprehend him. They were narrowed minded and empty. They lacked purpose other than twisted purposes that fulfilled their sickest base desires. He was not controlled by such things. Perhaps, once upon a time, he might have been, but those bindings were now gone.

Bound. He had been bound.

His mind played over that word. Bound. Why had he not known before now? This power he held was so much a part of him, how could he have ignored it for twenty one years? He knew the answer immediately. The thing that had kept it from him had been the greatest of chains. And now he remembered every detail.

Clearly, he saw in his memories an old man towering over him, blue eyes twinkling with mirth and an aura of power pouring off aged, wrinkled skin. He saw the sad smile, the long, slender wand, and the spell that caused magic to leap from it. Then he felt the chains pulling around him; though, they were not chains that one could see from the outside. They pulled from within him; they constricted around his heart. His infant body let out a scream, and suddenly, a part of him disappeared, blinked out as if it never existed.

Again, the old man smiled the sad smile. "I'm sorry, my dear boy, but this is for the best. The wizarding world will never be ready for you. There are much larger destinies that you must fulfill."

Dumbledore. He had done this. All of this was because Dumbledore had taken from him his rightful legacy. He knew the truth now. The bonds were gone, and he knew his heritage; the magic had seen to that. Dumbledore's shadow games would be to no avail.

Harry Potter moved down the now empty corridors of Azkaban. Aurors hid in fear from his wrath while dementors fled from him on sight. He knew that some of his adversaries were preparing a counter-strike to keep him here, but he would not be stopped… Never again. None would ever raise a wand against him and prevail. He would crush his enemies with the iron grip of his will and remake the wizarding world as he saw fit, under his terms. His imprisonment would never be allowed to happen to another.

Beneath his feet, the old world would burn. From the ashes, he would raise his Eden.

Harry moved from floor to floor unopposed. He came to stairwells and took each step carefully, slowly. Azkaban was ancient. Once, it had been a fortress used by one of the darkest wizards to ever exist. From within the towering walls of Azkaban, darkness had once spread the world through the world so thoroughly that it still resonated in the minds of purebloods today, thousands of years later. His eyes were half-closed as he took in the power. He did not see where he was going, but the fortress spoke to him, guiding his feet along a safe path.

A lesser man might have been dominated by the power. He might have been corrupted like the dementors had been so many centuries ago when they had been soldiers under the ancient dark lord. Once, they had been great warriors; now, they were but hungry, mindless wraiths, little more than wisps of what they once were, all because a leader became too power hungry. All because their greed drove them to share in that power.

No, that would not happen to him. He did not crave power. He did not need to. Power was only a scale created by mortals. His understanding went beyond that. He contained the same amount of inherent power others did, but he knew things about magic that those others did not, things that set him leagues above them. He knew that power was relative. It did not matter how much a being had if they did not have the will to use it. And there was one thing Harry Potter had, he had the will, and he lacked the restraints to hold back his will. He did not have a mind full of predetermined notions, notions like those that Dumbledore had forced on his younger self. No, he knew what he was capable of doing.

Anything.

Finally, he reached Azkaban's entrance hall. There, amidst the great black marble columns and dark iron battlements, he encountered their resistance, their last ditch attempt to contain him. This would be the deciding moment. Now, he would determine his future. He looked out at the group of armored aurors standing between him and the door to Azkaban prison, the last prison he would ever enter, and he knew without a doubt that they were little better than the chains they tried to bind him with. Like those chains, they would not last.

Harry Potter held out his hand. The aurors, almost thirty strong, tensed. They raised their wands. One of the aurors at the forefront of the group straightened and called out. "Prisoner Potter, this is your only warning. Lie down on the ground with your hands on your head, or we will use lethal force to subdue you."

Harry tilted his head and studied the wizard. An auror captain, no doubt a veteran of wizarding battles. The scars he wore told Harry that much. "No," Harry replied simply.

The word was said normal, but it came out of Harry and increased in strength to the point that when it reached the aurors, they clutched their hands to their ears reflexively. Harry's fingers curled inward, and the large dark iron doors behind the aurors groaned and twisted before they were wrested from their hinges and brought soaring into the crowd of stunned aurors. The aurors scattered like ants beneath the massive doors, just barely managing to escape as the iron plates crashed to the floor.

Harry stepped forward. He made it half-way to the doorway before the first spell was fired. It crumbled into nothingness before it reached him. Ten followed, then twenty, and then all thirty wizards fired at once. All their spells stopped before they hit him, merely fading into non-existence. Harry continued to walk forward until he reached the doorway. There he stopped, turned, and looked back. He raised a hand once more and the iron doors lifted from the floor, straightened, and folded back in place, magically reattaching to the hinges. The doors closed with a bang that shook the fortress.

Just like that, Harry Potter, the Boy-who-lived, the Betrayed, embraced his destiny.

* * *

Azkaban Island loomed ahead of them, mist swirling among the jagged rocks surrounding the shore. Only a small opening in the stone formations allowed their boats to pass through to safe, sandy beach, the only small spread of beachhead on the island. It was quiet. Even the sound of the waves of the Northern Sea hitting the rocks was muted. Noise seemed not to exist in the vacuum that was Azkaban.

Sand crunched beneath Dumbledore's boots as he stepped from the boat. The tide pushed water against his heels. He could feel the icy chill even through the thick leather and warming charms. Such was the way of nature. Sometimes, even the most powerful of charms could not escape the natural way of things. The Northern Sea was a force greater than magic, a bastion of Creation's power. Spells could not change that no more than he could beckon away the tides. For all they liked to play at it, wizards were not gods.

After a moment of scanning his surroundings, he realized there was something very wrong with the island.

Five hundred meters from the water, the first of the great walls of Azkaban loomed, one of the four that formed a square perimeter around the fortress. They were sixty meters high and made of runestone and dark iron. Each wall was twenty meters thick with towers spread along them every five hundred meters. The walls stretched two kilometers apiece. Normally, guards in groups of two patrolled the walls, three groups per wall. Then, in the towers, there was another guard stationed on watch and manning a cluster of rotating spotlights. In addition, another six guards were on permanent duty above the only entrance to Azkaban by land, a large dark iron gate that sat in the center of the wall facing the beachheads.

None were at their posts.

"Where are the guards?" Dumbledore asked aloud; though, he did not necessarily expect the other members of his party to answer. He could not see a single guard moving in either the towers or on the walls. The defenses were deserted. Only one protocol would allow for that to happen.

Azkaban had been taken over by the prisoners.

"Dumbledore, what do we do?" the Minister asked from the boat, obviously having come to the same conclusion as Dumbledore.

The Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot looked quizzically at the trembling little man. Fudge was wearing a tweed coat and a boiler, not exactly equipped for battle. Four war wizards, aurors specially trained for combat and warfare, surrounded the Minister, looking anxiously at each other. Dumbledore allowed his magic to flare briefly, something he did not often do on purpose, but it seemed his colleagues needed all the encouragement they could get.

He was about to add a spell to his aura that would calm the Minister, but something brushed against his extended senses and brought him reeling to a stop. _What? Impossible!_

Dumbledore held up a hand to stop the procession of war wizards and aurors from unloading as other boats landed. His face full of sudden anxiety, he turned toward the Minister. "Order your men to keep their wands holstered. We cannot engage in battle."

The Minister looked as though Dumbledore had gone mad. "What is wrong with you, man? Azkaban has been taken! Of course we will fight! The whole of the wizarding world may depend on us."

Dumbledore narrowed his eyes. During the war against Voldemort, Fudge had been known to show steel resolve against threats, so long as he did not have to go into battle himself. The man was quick to order others to war, but he was even quicker to do so without considering the outcome, much the same way he had so enthusiastically supported the arrest and conviction of Harry Potter. Fudge had made sure the media got plenty of photos of him signing the order to place the underage wizard in Azkaban for life.

But now, the Minister's brashness could harm everyone there. What Dumbledore felt on the end of his senses was the very thing he had dared to hope against for the many years he had known of the Evans family. He knew what would happen the very moment James and Lily conceived, one of the main reasons he had quietly tried to sabotage their relationship. For a while, he had dared to believe the threat was handled. Binding Harry's magic should have been more than sufficient to stop the growth from happening. Unfortunately, he had not counted on his young ward being placed in Azkaban. The dementors' ability to drain a wizard's magical core must have drained the bindings.

"We cannot enter here, Minister, without permission. We have no jurisdiction," Dumbledore said, his eyes wide and glistening, not wanting his words to be true. They meant that everything had changed. The status quo had been altered.

Cornelius Fudge was the Minister of Magic, and in magical Britain, one does not simply tell the Minister of Magic what he can or cannot do, especially when it comes to the defense of the realm. His power was outright and entire on that particular matter, even the Wizengamot could not argue a decision he made. He was the Steward of the Crown, the Lord High Minister of Magic, only the sovereign could order him to stand down, and a sovereign had not sat on the throne since the sixteenth century. So when the great Albus Dumbledore attempted to order him to leave a part of his realm in the hand of a mad killer, he did what any other sane Minister of Magic would do: he ignored the crazy old man.

Dumbledore sighed and watched helplessly as the Minister of Magic got out of the boat and ordered Dumbledore to stand aside. The old man bowed his head, folded his hands, and stepped back to allow the contingent of war wizards to ascend the hill that would quite likely take them to their deaths. Even if he had tried, Dumbledore doubted he could have done any more than he already had to thwart the events that would soon take place. The ascension had already began.

The King had returned.

* * *

Orian Throathammer did not wait for the carts that would take them to the summit of the caverns beneath Gringotts. He and his army did not ride in carts like their little cousins. They climbed. They climbed the perilous cavern walls just as generations before them had climbed from their tunnels to enter the bright world above. Once, goblins had been driven underground; once they had been cast down to the pits of the fiery underworld, but that time had now passed. Now, they climbed. They climbed until every member of the goblin-kind, goblin, orc, and every other beast of their breed, stood in the grand openings that would lead them into the halls of Gringotts Bank, their portal to the wizarding world.

An old, stumpy, teetering goblin was waiting for them. Unlike his taller, stronger cousins, he was not clad in battle armor and did not carry a weapon. He wore a suit, a suit similar to those of the humans he served. He frowned at Orian Throathammer.

"This is mad, my lord!" the small goblin squeaked, practically jumping up and down. He set his jaw and proclaimed, "I won't let you just come in here and change all we have worked for these years! We are finally being accepted by the wizards! Great strides have been made in human-goblin relations. If you storm in here with a battle host, you'll set us back five hundred years!"

This goblin reminded Orian why he did not spend much time associating with lesser goblins. They were cowards. They had no stomach for battle. Sure, they could be ruthless and cutthroat when the odds were in their favor, but war required the courage to defy even the most stacked odds. Now was the time for such courage. Now was the time to dream and hope. Now was the time to fight for all they believed in and reclaim their spot in the world.

The growl that next escaped Orian's throat was echoed by several of the battle host behind him. He mouth leered, flashing his fangs for the little goblin to see. "We do not wait for humans to accept us." And with that, he shoved the little goblin aside and threw open the doors to the bank lobby.

**A/N: Thank you all for the reviews. I must admit that I was surprised by the interest in the story. Please, continue to give me your thoughts.**

**As always,**

**Lord Derrick**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. JK Rowling owns it all, and I make no money from it.**

**A/N: I feel as though I should enter a note here. I love the Harry Potter universe. It has been with me since childhood and walked with me through the stages of life. Now, in adulthood, I share it with my family. My wife, like me, adores everything Harry Potter. That is why I decided to write this fan fiction. After read hundreds of pieces of dribble and crap, I was inspired to try my own hand at creating a lasting impression on the fandom that surrounds the marvelous creations of J.K. Rowling. I hope, in this endeavor, I am somewhat succeeding. After all, literature, in all its forms, is essential to the preservation of humanity.**

_**Chapter Four**_

"_One could say that I knew Harry Potter intimately. One would be more accurate in saying that I knew him like a person knows an enemy. Both statements would be correct; for, only Harry Potter could have been both my dearest friend and my most hated enemy. Only someone who embodies both the light and the dark of our world can achieve that kind of balance."_

_Lord Hadrian Conners, __The Rightful King_

Harry felt them coming before they even reached the gate. He could sense their magic. He could feel their emotions stirring them, their anxiety and fear churning below the surface, feeding the power that they harnessed in their spells. These were not regular wizards; he knew that. These were the elite. They had trained for moments like this, practiced to take down the strongest of threats in both Britain and abroad. They would not hesitate to kill him. There would be no warning, no pause, no reflection. They would kill him and be done with it, ready to move to the next job.

They were true killers.

He smiled. Those kinds of men were the kinds the Ministry of Magic, with its false pretenses of nobility, did not want the public to know about. They were the secret stashes, the hidden weapons, the war wizards… the unspeakables.

The unspeakables in question didn't wait for the gate to be open. Unlike most wizards, they were not afraid of physical exertion. Instead of blasting through the gate, they silently scaled the wall in the hopes of surprising their prey. Harry had to give them credit. The idea wasn't a bad one; albeit, they could have done better at concealing themselves once they were over the wall. Still, it would have worked with most wizards. The magical community as a whole had an overwhelming disdain for anything non-magical and never would have expected such a tactic.

Unfortunately, Harry Potter wasn't most wizards. In fact, one could barely call him a person, much less a wizard. Most people did not feel the raw, unbridled hatred he felt. Most people did not contain a storm of fury that threatened to unleash itself on the world and destroy it. Most people only thought they knew real rage.

These unspeakables had no idea.

He did not see them as much as he felt them assemble at different points around him. Their first spells were exactly as Harry predicted, precise and deadly; they had no room to make mistakes.

Neither did Harry.

He stepped forward several spaces. For a moment, the world slowed down, and he was able to clear the intersection where the spells met. The spells sailed harmlessly past him. Moving much faster than they were prepared for, he reached out towards one of the unspeakables just as the others trained their wands on him and pulled with his fingers. The unspeakable soared to him. He stepped aside to avoid another volley of spells, leaving the unspeakable in his wake. The spells shattered the protective enchantments the war wizard wore and ripped his body into tiny shreds.

Harry wrinkled his nose in disgust. That's how they wanted to play?

Fine.

Harry whirled on his heel and used the innate magic in the air to lift him several meters off the ground. He landed behind two of the war wizards and grabbed the back of their necks with magically enhanced hands. He squeezed. They didn't have time to struggle before bone crunched under the grip of his fingers and they went limp. Quickly, he bent down, grabbed their wands, and began to hurl spells that had not been seen in generations, spells he should not have known existed, spells that leapt into his mind when ever he needed something accomplished.

The stationed war wizards scattered under the barrage of his deadly magic. Explosions riveted around the courtyard. Screams called from one side near the gate as one wizard's right arm and shoulder were blown apart. Another unspeakable simply fell down dead, unable to raise a shield that could block Harry's magic.

Still, Harry did not stop. The war wizards immediately tried to rally, but Harry threw down the wands and thrust his arms out to either side. The air around him grew still, almost as if the molecules that made up the gases in the air suddenly froze into solids.

"_Attend me!_" he cried.

The frozen air vibrated, and a wave of orange flames burst from every part of Harry's body and pushed outward in a cyclone. The air blazed as the hungry fire sought every war wizard whom dared to get close to him. Moments later and the screams of the dying and the smell of burning flesh rose into the sky, Harry's tribute to the gods who had left him in this place to suffer and die.

The Boy-who-lived clenched his hands and brought them down to his side. In one sweep, he had given the wizarding world back the pain they had thrust upon, the pain he had earned in defending their lives from Lord Voldemort. Then, he raised his hands into the air and called down the storms.

Black and grey clouds billowed overhead. Torrents of rain began to fall and plaster the ground with sudden floods of water. Lightening arced then raced to the fortress and its walls, striking along the stone and iron, tearing apart chunks of structure while forcing entire sections of the supposedly impregnable fortress walls to fall into crumbled ruins. The winds swam around Harry, matching his strength with his fury, and buffeting away all who still dared to approach. Harry was lifted from the ground and carried several meters into the sky.

From there he could see the two men waiting on the outside of the gate. They had led the war wizards to their deaths just as easily as they had sent him to Azkaban prison. Dumbledore and Fudge.

Dumbledore and Fudge…

* * *

Dumbledore could barely keep standing as the storm raged, breaking through the silent night that had surrounded Azkaban Island until that moment. The Headmaster took a step back and braced himself against the strength of the elements being unleashed. More than once he had to fling spells at falling stone or iron that had been blasted loose by the lightening strikes. This was going worse than he thought. He could feel the unspeakables dying, but every time he tried to intervene or to link with Harry's mind, the younger man's power shoved against his own like a battering him, leaving the Headmaster staggering and breathless.

He looked over at Fudge. The man was practically unconscious with fear. Dumbledore grabbed the Minister by the collar and started down the beach back to the boats.

"W-what are you d-doing?" the Minister managed to stutter as cold bits of icy rain plunged down atop of them.

"We are escaping," Dumbledore told him.

"W-what about the o-others? Y-you c-can't j-just leave them h-here," the Minister said through clinched teeth.

Dumbledore shook his head. "There is nothing you nor I can do for them now. The day is lost, Minister," he told the man. All the while, his stomach churned with guilt at what he was about to do, but it was true. They could not help the unspeakables. The best they could do was return to the mainland and prepare. They had to warn everyone.

"They will die, man!" Fudge yelled, suddenly defiant, but it only lasted a moment as an answering explosion of thunder cowered him once more.

Dumbledore shot him a stern gaze. "And we will die here with them if we do not leave!" It wasn't about him dying. He did not fear death. He feared what his death would mean for others. He lived and acted for the good of the wizarding world. Didn't Fudge understand how important he was? How important his plans were for the entire wizarding world? Only he could stop the threat that had become to exist in Harry Potter, not to even mention the inevitable return of Lord Voldemort!

"You're Albus Dumbledore. Surely, you can fight a bunch of prisoners!"

Dumbledore shook his head as he hauled the Minister into a boat before following himself. "There is only one man in there fighting to get out."

"One prisoner?" Fudge asked disbelievingly. "You're leaving because of one prisoner?"

"No," he sighed. "The man in there trying to get out is no more a prisoner than you are, Minister. I told you not to send him to Azkaban. I told you there would be repercussions."

The Minister's face drained of all its color as he remembered signing away Harry Potter's life in vivid detail. "That's not possible! He's just a boy! He didn't even complete his first year at Hogwarts! A boy couldn't do this." The last part came out more as a desperate, whispered plea.

Dumbledore hung his head. "Perhaps you would be right in that assessment had I been allowed to keep Harry at Hogwarts. But you took away my ability to watch him and locked him in the last place he should have ever been." He grabbed Fudge by the shoulders and stared him in the eyes. "Cornelius, you never listen! I told you this would happen! Harry Potter is the Heir of House Emyrs by his mother Lily Evans!"

Fudge's mouth gaped open. He closed it, then opened it a fish, then repeated once again in a good impression of a fish. "Impossible."

Dumbledore shook his head. "More possible than you know. The boy you locked away is dead. He died when you closed him in that cell. Along with him died every binding I had put in place to keep the power of House Emyrs from awakening within him. No doubt, that power has now manifested, and Harry has ascended, probably with full knowledge of who he is and where to go for help. Merlin would have seen to it that his heirs had the necessary knowledge despite the circumstances. More likely than not, the only thing left of Harry Potter now goes by Harry, the Lord Merlin, by the Grace of God, King of the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, King of the Franks, Right Duke of Normandy, First Lord of the Moridunum, and Prince of Corinth."

"My God," was all Fudge could say as a terrified Headmaster sped back to the mainland, letting twenty wizards sacrifice themselves for the wizarding world.

* * *

Harry watched them leave and felt the first bit of satisfaction he had felt in ten years. Both men were afraid. They knew they could not stand against him, and they ran away. He wanted them to feel that way. They should be afraid, because soon, he would be coming for them to. Soon, the entire world would quake beneath his wrath as he tore it down brick by brick.

Harry allowed the magic around him to dispel and floated back down to the ground. The war wizards were mostly incapacitated. Many were dead. He had not wanted to kill them. They had done nothing but follow orders, but such was the price of war. There would be causalities. There always were. He knew that. People did not like change, and now that he knew who he was, he would bring about change unlike the wizarding world had ever seen.

His reign would be a harbinger of death while wielding a solid hand of change.

He closed his eyes and extended his senses much in the same way Dumbledore had done only moments before when he had tried to invade Harry's mind. Of course, where the old man had failed, Harry did not. Suddenly, in a rush of emotion, he felt both the living and the dead surrounding him. Silently, he mourned for the dead. The living, though some could barely be called living, he summoned to himself. Their unconscious bodies floated through the air and rested at his feet. Thirteen of twenty, he counted.

Seven were dead because of the ambitions of a politician and the manipulations of an old man.

Harry sighed and knelt in the center of the bodies. He touched the ground with his hands, closed his eyes, and forced as much of his power as he could into the ground, directing it toward each of the bodies. He shuddered as, for the first time that night, his weary, malnourished body felt its reserves drained. He did not stop. Using every bit of energy he possessed, he pushed, pouring healing magics into the unspeakables, going to their very cores to find the deepest of injuries. In that moment, he gave everything he had to their ragged, torn bodies and through his life essence fostered their own.

A blue-white glow surrounded the thirteen bodies. All the injuries they had, even old scars of battles long past, faded away and were replaced by whole, unblemished skin. No trace of injury could be found anywhere, and as one, they opened their eyes and sat up.

The thirteen wizards were confused. The last thing they had seen was the raging fiery inferno of the wizard they had been told to kill. Now, they stared silently at the same wizard, none of them moving or speaking. He had healed them.

Wordlessly, as is the way of the unspeakables, they communicated. They watched the man who they had believed to be a monster rise to his feet and stand, his body weak and drained from the power he had just used to give them back their lives. Then, they looked around at the corpses of their fallen colleagues. Without having to say a single word, they each knew what the other was thinking; for, the power Harry had poured into them carried with it a signature. It allowed them to understand what they had been sent to do and who they had been sent to kill. As a group, they all shifted their bodies until they were one knee, heads bowed. They knew who their target was.

A weakened Harry Potter only barely registered the wizards kneeling around him. The magical that had been sustaining him the past few hours was ebbing away quickly. He needed help, and these unspeakables could help. He swooned on his feet and just barely managed to say before he passed out, "Take me to Gringotts."

**A/N: Thank you all for your support. Again, I am genuinely surprised and overwhelmed by the positive feedback. I wish I could respond to each of you individually, but my time is limited. Please believe that I cherish each review. Many of you have wondered when the girls would begin to appear. Patience. All things are sweeter with time and proper development. I promise you will not be disappointed. Thoughts?**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. JK Rowling owns it all. I am but a mortal quaking before the immortality of her idea.**

**A/N: Thank you all for the reviews. I have tried to make this a little longer than the rest. Hopefully, the chapters will continue to get even longer.**

_**Chapter Five**_

Wizards and witches screamed.

Orian Throathammer smiled at the humans' reactions as the battle host swarmed the wizarding bank's halls. His bloodlust flared. These pathetic excuses for sentient beings had no place in his world, especially in a place of perceived dominance over a race as mighty as the Goblin Nation. They were cowards who ran at the first site of battle.

The Great Doors of Gringotts, heavy iron and inlaid with gold and silver, shut tightly closed at the first scream. It was a security failsafe to prevent deatheaters or other terrorist organizations from attempting to raid the bank. The doors were supposed to be able to resist all but the strongest of magic. Unless several individuals with abilities such as those of Albus Dumbledore came about and tried to bring the doors down, the attacks would be thwarted. Now, they acted as a prison for several screaming humans.

As it should be.

The humans pushed themselves against the door. They banged their fists on the door, tugged at it, and pushed on it. It did not budge. This just made them panic more. Apparently, these humans forgot that they were of a higher order of animal than a mouse; for, if they had remembered, one of them might have thought of trying spells. The door was designed to keep spells out, not keep them in.

Of course, he had expected no better of them. In the hierarchy of the true magical world, humans were very low. Wizards were allowed to play their games because of the fact they were considered neither intelligent nor particularly powerful. Only a few actually merited that the larger community pay them head, and these few were so incredibly powerful that the magical community had been irrevocably changed on more than one occasion just by their existence. Merlin had been one such individual. He had beaten the entire Goblin Nation into a lasting submission that was now tied to the Nation's very honor. The pandering idiot known as the "Dark Lord" had not been one such individual. His only accomplishment had been to sway a few werewolves and giants, an act to which the larger magical community had taken offense.

In the wizarding world, these two individuals were considered the opposing spectrums of greatness. They believed Merlin was the pillar of light and the very essence of magic, and for that, he was great. They believed that Voldemort was dark and evil, and for that, he was great. Wizards were only half right. They had no clue of what darkness truly was, and that was their greatest flaw.

Sheep were just that: sheep.

Orian growled and drew the broadsword from his back. The blade filled him with the strength of his ancestors, the force of the patriarchs. He was their heir, their legacy. Within his veins ran the power of Gorog Thunderclaw, Stone of the Black Mountains. No goblin could come against him and live, and these humans, these wizards, with their lofty ideas of superiority over all magical kind, would not succeed where others had failed. He stepped forward and thrust the sword at the floor tip first. A wave of blue magic erupted from the impact and the stone parted beneath the weapon.

"Enough!" His voice raced through the hall, weaving amongst the floor and walls, vibrating into the very atoms that made up the white marble.

Wizards and goblins alike stopped what they were doing, momentarily shaken by the power of Orian's presence. In truth, there was very little magic behind it. He just knew how to intimidate. A leader learned such things if he stayed in power long, and Orian Throathammer had been in power for a long time, longer than most. His ancestors had ruled for millennia, but he neared a single millennium on his own and showed no signs of weakening. Most goblins would have aged and withered, but Orian did not. He would not die by sickness or wrinkles. He would die by steel or truesilver. He would die by sword or axe. He would die taking the warrior who brought him down with him. That was the only death Orian Throathammer would permit himself to have. Anything less would not be honorable. As such, he projected a very specific image, one that had not been properly expressed in the human tongue until recently. By the look of fear on the wizards' faces as they stared up at him, they were very acutely aware of that image and how to describe it:

Don't fuck with me.

Orian snarled and walked towards the door. The humans flinched; none dared to challenge him. _Weaklings. _"Where is the Ministry of Magic?" Orian balked. "Do none come to defend you? Does not a battle host of true goblins march on your city?" He drew his sword over his head, crowed a blood cry of his people, and…

And a hand touched his shoulder. It was small and feminine and human. It stopped him dead in his tracks.

"Great lord, we aren't here to start a war. We are here to retrieve the King. He will lead us on the proper path," his aide said in a firm voice devoid of even the slightest wariness, the wariness that any other being would have been wise to use when speaking with Orian Throathammer.

The large goblin growled and spun, ready to strike down the human who dared to question him, but like always, the very sight of Miranda quelled his anger. In the back of his mind, there was a small part that realized this was some kind of magic working against him. He should have been angry, furious even. He should have fought against any type of wizarding magic that tried to control him, but he could not. He knew exactly what the magic was; for, he had allowed it to be cast on himself. It was a protection provided by the last First Lord of Moridunum for Miranda's family. Orian could have only hurt Miranda if she threatened his life. Even for all her abilities, and some were very potent, that was a nearly impossible occurrence.

Few could threaten the Hammer of the Orcs.

"You would have me spare those who would imprison and demean us? What kind of goblin would I be if I let such an affront to our honor stand?" he asked; though, he already saw her logic. He was no longer a young warrior prone to giving into the haze of battle, the lust of the kill. He had wisdom, hard earned wisdom.

Miranda smiled softly, a tender, placating smile. "One who listens to reason and understanding. You are not trying to kill every wizard alive. That would make things very difficult for the King. You are trying to forge a new path, one along which goblins rise to their rightful place. Do not sink to the level of these," she said, pointing at the thirty or so witches and wizards.

At her words, one of the wizards appeared to gain some of his sense back, at least the part of him that engaged his courage. Unfortunately, the part of his brain that kept him from saying stupid things did not follow. If it had, the tall, platinum blonde haired wizard with a distinct air of supremacy about him might not have made the mistake he was about to make. He might have realized that he was severely outnumbered in a hostile territory. Then again, he might have just done it anyway simply because he believed with every fiber of his being that pureblood wizards were the most dominant force in the world, magical or otherwise.

The wizard pulled on a silver tipped walking stick he held and released a hawthorn wand from the shaft, which he gripped securely in his hand. He brought it to bear on the goblin lord. He held it casually, in a practiced, almost lazy, stance that suggested he had quite a bit of practice at confronting threatening beings and had no qualms about doing so. The look on his face said very clearly what he thought of the goblin host.

"Now see here, beast. The scion of House Malfoy will not stand here while you manhandle proper wizarding folk." The wizard sent a writhering glare towards Miranda. "Some of us know our place better than others. Do not make me use my magic to remind you of yours."

The young wizard, to his credit, did not outwardly show fear when the roar of the battle host replied to him, but Orian could spell it in his pores. The boy practically oozed it.

"Do you expect me to be afraid of your antics, goblin? I am a Malfoy, the purest of purebloods. Magic runs through my veins. If necessary, I will rend your head from your body with that magic. Do not make me do so."

This further outraged the battle host. Several took steps forward, unsheathing their weapons as they did. Orian held up a hand to stop them. He gave the Malfoy wizard an appraising look. "You would draw a wand on a goblin within Gringotts?"

Malfoy didn't hesitate. "And use it if I must."

Orian didn't hesitate either. His free hand crashed into Malfoy's arm faster than the wizard could even consider casting a spell. The wand fell to the floor as he rolled his shoulder, wrapping his arm around Malfoy's and pulling the wizard to him. "One who truly wishes to do battle does not speak of it first. He acts. Consider this a free lesson, wizard. It might prevent you from dying a coward's death."

The blond haired pureblood did not flinch as he was pulled within inches of Orian's face. The pain was evident in his features, but below it, a superior sneer stared back at Orian as clear as day. "Kill me, beast," Malfoy said through clenched teeth. "It will not matter."

"Dreadlord," Miranda said from behind the pair. Her voice was low and placating; though, the edge of worry didn't go missing on the goblin lord's ears. "His Majesty-"

Orian did not listen. Instead, he stared at Malfoy. The young wizard was standing against him. He didn't expect that. He expected the wizards to run like the scared sheep they normally were. This newfound bravery shook him. It challenged every belief he had. Wizards were supposed to be sheep. They always had been. The larger magical community did not interfere in their lives for that reason alone. Why would beings like fae and vampires care what foolish pursuits entertained mortals? They were not subject to the whims of humanity like goblins so often were. Humans were not threats.

This wizard could be a threat simply because he was brave. Stupid, yes, but brave.

He looked from the wizard's face to the wand lying useless on the floor. With a shrug of his shoulder, he threw the wizard away.

Malfoy stumbled and fell to the ground several meters away from the goblin and the wand.

Orian's sword flashed and crashed down on the wand. The wood splintered and shattered under the strength of goblin steel, emitting only the tiniest spark in protest. On the white marble beneath the wand, a black scorch mark appeared. The great sword had chipped the stone.

Orian kicked the wand shards over to the wizard, ignoring the gasps from the humans crowded at the door.

This time, Malfoy did react negatively. The color drained from his face. His eyes watered as he stared at the pieces of his wand. "Wh-what?" he asked dumbly, every trace of bravery suddenly broken.

Orian felt a wave of satisfaction. This was the way he remembered wizards: cowards who were reliant on their little sticks. They did not know true power. The battle host roared once more, and now, the wizards truly did quake. None tried to wave their wands again.

"Pathetic. Wizards as a whole have treated my race like bugs beneath them for too long." He raised his sword over his head. "That ends now!" He pointed the blade at the cowering Malfoy. "You have drawn a wand on a goblin within Gringotts, sovereign soil of the Goblin Nation. I hold your life forfeit." And the goblin might have acted on his proclamation had it not been for the…

_BANG!_

The explosion rocketed through the bank, throwing the magically sealed doors open in a burst of flame and force that knocked both wizards and goblins from their feet. Only Orian and a few others managed to stay standing. The powerful goblin lord had not even stumbled.

A few seconds passed while the smoke cleared. No one said a word. The silence was tangible, broke only by scattered coughs. The goblins recovered quicker than the humans. Soon, the entire battle host was back on their feet with their weapons drawn. Finally, the smoke began to open. Rays of sunlight passed through the doorway, cascading across the smoke in hazy waves of broken light. Orian used his free hand to shield his eyes while holding the great sword ready in his other.

"Ready!" he shouted, his roaring voice snapping at the warriors. The battle host clung their armor and swords as one in response, the perfect cry of practiced discipline and deadly ferocity.

Thirteen wizards stepped out of the smoke in a crescent formation. All were wearing unspeakable uniforms that were badly burnt and covered in various types of gore. In the center of the crescent walked another figure wearing the grey uniform of an Azkaban inmate. His long, stringy black hair hung past his shoulders in oily tassels. His green eyes glowed with a fury that was clearly only barely contained. The temperature in the room seemed to drop as he appeared. Wizards back away in shock. Even some of the goblins shook at the cold stare with which he looked across the bank.

Orian did not know what trick the wizards were playing. All he knew was that they had gone too far. Now, they had directly assaulted Gringotts, a goblin fortress. He could not let such an affront stand. It was an insult to the Goblin Nation.

"_MORID-" _he started, but the battle charge stopped on his lips as a light struck him in the chest and flung him on his back.

For a moment he did not remember how to act. It had been so long since he had been forced down against his will. It had never been by a human. But that wasn't the worst of it. He had felt the power in the blast, the contained and controlled force of a single act of will. It wasn't a wizard's spell. It was pure magic. Still, Orian Throathammer was a goblin warrior. He sprang to his feet without the aid of his hands and charged the scrawny wizard and his guards.

Miranda stepped gracefully between him and his prey, successfully routing his charge as he stopped in his tracks for fear of hurting her, an irrational thought for a warrior. Without looking at him, she approached the unspeakables.

The wizard in the center nodded as she approached and the war wizards parted to allow her to pass. She walked within a meter of him, stopped, and dropped to one knee. She drew her wand and laid it at his feet.

"Your Majesty," she started, "I live to serve."

Orian almost dropped his sword at Miranda's words. This scrawny, emaciated man was their king! The Heir of House Emrys! Then, as if an invisible hand was guiding him, he was overcome by a strange compulsion that could only be one thing. Inexplicably, the High Lord of the Goblin Nation, second only to the First Lord of the Moridunum, gave into the rising instinct his blood called to and took a knee before a human wizard, one capable of drawing upon the purest of power and hurling it easier than most wizards used spells. Bowing his head, the great goblin, the Hammer of the Orcs, offered his sword, the sword that never left his person, to the spot of marble in front of him. There, he let it lie.

"Hail the King!" he said.

Slowly, goblin after goblin followed (even their lesser cousins) until only the humans were left standing. They gave their weapons into service of their lord and entrusted that he would protect them while they were not armed. They did what few goblins in their lives were able required to do. They placed their honor on the very existence of a single being. The tied themselves to a human.

_May all of Moridunum rise._

* * *

Harry Potter looked out across the kneeling goblins. The woman at his feet reached for his right hand, took it in hers and kissed the knuckles.

"Your Majesty, your subjects are assembled. Your battle host awaits your commands."

Harry's mind raced. Since the unspeakables had revived him, fed him pepper-up potion, and carted him off to Gringotts, information had been squeezed into his brain. He did not know whom it was from or what was giving it to him, but he did know it was for him and him alone, and he did know what it meant.

He could not claim to be a wizard anymore. That would have been too simple of a description. He wasn't even sure he was entirely human, much less a wizard. Within him, there were wizard parts, but there existed other parts as well, parts he had never noticed before, parts that had been hidden from him. He knew from the information being crammed into his skull that this should not have happened. Someone had purposefully bound these parts away from him. Someone had hidden his heritage willing, and that could not be allowed to stand.

Harry looked at the woman holding his hand. In her eyes, he could see the fierce devotion, the admiration, and even the love, the love for a king she had only dreamed of meeting. Through those eyes, he got to know her, to feel her emotions, to live her memories, and to understand her convictions. Before now, she had served the Goblin Nation as an aide, a human amongst beings of great power. Until now, she had not been able to fully call any place in the world her own, but Harry had given her that. Her purpose was to serve the First Lord of the Moridunum, and she would do so with such passion that the history books would remember her.

And then he looked past her to the kneeling goblins and something in him changed, yet another change in a long line of changes he had experienced that day. This was his army. These were his subjects, his to protect and serve. Someone had dared to hide him from them. Harry Potter tightened his hands into fists.

"Moridunum," he said, not in the least bit afraid that they would not listen, "prepare for war!"

* * *

Deep within the Ministry of Magic, locked behind many doors and protected by dozens of hastily mobilized aurors. Albus Dumbledore felt a chill go down his spine and had a terrible sense of foreboding. Something bad was about to happen.

"Cornelius," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

The Minister of Magic looked up from his desk. The senior ministry officials present also turned at the Headmaster's beckon. "Yes, Dumbledore?" the little man asked.

"We must brace ourselves."

It did not take the famous seer blood of the Dumbledore family to make them hear the truth behind his words.

"_That is when I knew that the Dark Lord wasn't going to come back, at least not by that title. After that moment in time, no other but Harry Potter will ever hold a rightful claim to that title."_

_Lord Draco Malfoy, __Enticing the Dragon_

**A/N: Thoughts? I love them, love them, love them. Please take the time to leave one.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. JK Rowling owns it all. I am but a mortal quaking before the immortality of her idea.**

**Chapter Six**

Harry slept for ten hours and did not dream a single dream. When he woke, Miranda was in the bedroom waiting on him.

The Gringotts goblins had furnished him a room they kept on hand for visiting dignitaries. It was large and spacious with a massive four-poster bed done in plush red. Light poured in from windows that did not actually view the outside but were charmed to make the viewer believe they did. It reminded him of Hogwarts. A memory he did not want.

He didn't want to remember anything about that place and the people he had called his friends. The people who had betrayed him.

"Good morning, Your Majesty. Clothes and armor have been prepared for you," Miranda greeted with a warm smile and a curtsy.

Harry looked at the beautiful brunette. Her hair was looser today than before. It fell freely in waves that went to mid-back. She wore similar clothes, a white button-up and a black skirt. Harry felt a stirring inside him when he looked at her. The way she stared at him, the way her eyes lit up with adoration when he was around, all but calmed the anger raging within him; yet, it was replaced by another emotion that was just as potent. He could not help but enjoy the attentions of a woman. He was, after all, a man who had been locked in prison for ten years.

He did not realize that his eyes were lingering in certain spots as they traced the curve of her body, stopping for at each button of her shirt. He blinked and shook his head.

"Like what you see, sire?"

Harry's eyes darted to her face. She was grinning. The smile held a suggestive leer. One Harry could feel just as much as see.

"Very much," he said, rising from the bed, noting as he did that he had been bathed and cleaned. He wore an unfamiliar pair of red boxers. When had that happened? And who had undressed him?

Miranda's eyes widened. Her hand went to cover the sudden gape her mouth left as it hung open.

Harry noticed the reaction. "What?" he asked. It shouldn't be a surprise that a woman acted that way when looking at him. It's not like he had been good with girls before Azkaban. Add on ten years of prison driven emaciation, and he couldn't blame anyone for being disturbed. His cheeks grew warm, the cold power that had covered him yesterday being chased away by shame.

Miranda shook her head and pointed behind Harry. He turned, following her finger, to a mirror that hung on the wall. He stared into the glass.

It wasn't him that looked back. Well, it was his face, but the body beneath it wasn't his. It couldn't be. It was tall, muscled, and sculpted. He shouldn't look like that! He hadn't looked like that ever. Just a few hours earlier he had been a malnourished convict with stringy, greasy hair! Now, he was a bronze Adonis with long, full black hair that looked as if it should be worn by a veela and not a wizard. The only thing that hadn't changed was his eyes. They were as green and vibrant as ever.

"What happened?" he whispered and turned back to Miranda.

Miranda blinked, cleared her throat, and managed to recover. "Forgive me, lord. I knew that this could happen. The moment you ascended, your body had to change to compensate the power going through it. Only, I expected that to happen before you came to us. The magic should have altered you the first time you rested."

"Well, other than a brief moment of unconsciousness at the prison, I did not rest until last night. I had to say awake to escape the prison and fight my way here," Harry told her simply, as if were not a big deal that he had thrown around magic not seen in centuries.

Miranda's eyes widened again. "You what? That's not possible!"

The temperature in the rom dropped, and the witch knew she had made a mistake. An icy chill blew between them. Harry let out a low growl. His skin rippled as the muscles beneath it tensed. "You accuse me of lying?" he asked, his voice low and full of venom. The magically induced light from the windows flickered.

Miranda took a step back, suddenly very afraid of the man in front of her. She should have known better. She had seen him blow through the magically impervious doors at Gringotts. She had seen his magic knock the mighty Orian Throathammer to the ground. But she had not understood. Until then, the thought of a king who had been repressed in Azkaban had, on some level, disgusted her. The Moridunum needed a strong leader, not one who had been stunted before having a chance to mature.

In that moment she knew better, and that knowledge terrified her. Her magic responded against her will as he stared at her, the storm in his green eyes so intense that it alone could have forced her to her knees. She backed away as far as she could until she hit the wall.

"M-my lord, I-"

"Don't speak," Harry snapped, cutting her off. "I did not give you permission to speak." His voice was laced with the power of command and authority that he should not have known how to access. He raised a finger and pointed it at her. "I have been accused of lying too often to let you do so. No one will ever question my honesty again. Do you understand?"

Miranda nodded. She couldn't bring herself to speak, so that would have to suffice. She didn't trust her self to do anything else, because in that moment, her body simply crawled with desire from the heat of Harry's radiating magic. She knew it was a reaction to his strength, but that didn't change anything. Between her legs, she could feel a wetness building uncomfortably against her panties. Her nipples hardened beneath the fabric of her thin bra.

Harry's eyes drifted down to her chest. A smile crossed his lips though it did little to warm the coldness of his features. "You are excited," he said, a laugh in his voice. "I admit, my education on the female body is limited, but I do remember picking up a few things from the speculations of my dorm-mates."

He took a step towards her. Miranda tensed in anticipation. Her body yearned to go to him. Her instincts had regressed to the more animalistic part of her nature. The desire she felt then was just that: bestial. But behind all that, in the place where logic still maintained a feeble grasp, her mind screamed for her to refuse. It told her that the magic was affecting her. To give into such a desire would cheapen anything she could one day have with the king. It would make her little more than a slut.

His slut. The thought made her even wetter.

Harry closed the gap between them. His body pressed against hers. She could feel his erection against her leg. The Boy-Who-Lived leaned down to her ear. His tongue swept over the edge, flicking against the skin. A shudder went down her body. His hands clasped either side of her waist and flexed against the feeling of her in them. She gasped at his strength.

Then it stopped. The magic ended, and she felt her senses return to her. The foggy haze of lust cleared. But had she ended? She couldn't remember. She only remembered… No. She hadn't stopped it. He had. The Boy-Who-Lived, her king, had ended the magic on purpose. And now he was standing there, holding her against the wall.

A tiny whisper of a voice spoke to her in the silence. "I will kill them, Miranda. I will destroy them all for doing this to me and daring to call me a liar. You do not know what I have seen and heard while in that place. What was done to me. Any society that can stand idly by while such torture is condoned is a stain, and that stain shall be burned from this earth and their ashes salted so that nothing shall grow in their place."

Miranda was too afraid to respond.

* * *

Dumbledore sighed. The Minister of Magic was an idiot. Why would anyone think the best way to respond to a threat would be to go running madly into enemy territory without any intelligence on the enemy's capabilities? An utterly ludicrous idea. Yet, that was precisely what Fudge ordered his men to do the very moment the report had come that the goblins had attacked Draco Malfoy and thrown him and several other wizards from Gringotts.

Dumbledore attempted to point out that the witness reports stated that the goblins had not actually attacked so much as simply appeared in the bank and sealed the doors. The Malfoy heir had been the first one to actually attack, violating the ancient treaty that protected the bank as sovereign territory of the goblin nation.

"Do I look like I care, Dumbledore?" the Minister had responded. "Gringotts is a wizarding institution. We will not have those beasts think they can get away with harming decent magical folk."

Arguing with the Minister at that point would have only made the matters worse. Fudge was terrified that Harry Potter would destroy his precious Ministry and his reputation. The man clang to power, but more than that, he clang to the power he did not have to work hard for. Fudge had done little real work since getting elected. The majority of the tasks that should belong to the Minister of Magic were delegated to a board of undersecretaries that were over paid and as bigoted as the influential families who held Fudge in the palm of their hand.

Now, Dumbledore watched from the special spell-screen in the Minister's office as a team of thirty aurors approached the goblin fortress that acted as a bank for the wizarding world and knew that those men and women quite possibly marched to their deaths. The Headmaster shook his head.

"Cornelius, I beg you, end this fallacy. The aurors will not be able to withstand a goblin battle host."

The Minister scoffed. "Dumbledore, you give them too much credit. Thirty of our finest duelist against a bunch of stunted creatures who don't even have wands? The goblins will surrender before the fight even begins, you wait and see."

Wait. Did the Minister think that the goblin warriors were the same one who worked in the bank? How could a man be so ignorant of the larger magical world around him and get elected? Dumbledore could understand how the general population did not know about the true nature of the magical community, but the Minister of Magic should know better! It was the Ministry who authorized the youth of Britain to be left significantly uneducated on the subject of the outside world. Supposedly, it ensured that few ever left the wizarding world for the larger opportunities awaiting those who ventured outside it. With a few exceptions, it had worked. But this time, that ignorance could get several good wizards and witches killed and start a war in earnest against a foe wizarding Britain was not prepared to face.

"Minister, you've got to recall the aurors. Those are not the goblins you think they-"

Dumbledore didn't finish. His stomach rose into his throat at the image that filled the spell-screen. It was too late.

* * *

Orian watched the wizards approach from one of the observation points above the bank lobby. They did not move in any particular formation. Confident in their presumed superior abilities, they casually approached the doors of the bank, or what the goblins had managed to be replace in the eleven hours since the knew king had destroyed them.

"Arrogant aren't they?" said the voice of the First Lord of the Moridinum from beside Orian.

The goblin lord grunted. "All wizards seem to have that tendency." He met the Boy-Who-Lived's eyes with a look just as intense as the chilling green gaze that watched him. "It would do well for you to remember that, Majesty."

Harry didn't reply for moment. His eyes searched the goblin lord before they filled with a glint of genuine mirth. The wizard threw his head back and laughed. The affect on the battle host below them was instantaneous. The reassurance of Harry's calm confidence bolstered their resolve and morale. Subtle waves of encouraging magic wafted from the wizard and warmed them.

"I shall do my best, Lord Orian; though, I hope you will be there to knock me around a bit should I forget it."

Orian smiled, a rather grotesque action for a goblin considering the shape of their faces. Yes, this new king might fit in just fine.

Then, the aurors made their move.

"Hey, you lot in there," cried a witch with striking bubble gum hair. "Open up in the name of the Ministry of Magic."

On Orian's other side, Miranda turned and faced the goblin lord and her king. "My lords?"

Harry nodded. Orian seconded the gesture.

Miranda cleared her throat, cast a charm with her wand, and called back: "The goblin nation does not recognize the organization you refer to. The Ministry of Magic is considered an illegal government with no authority to discuss any agreements or issue any orders to the peoples of the goblin nation."

The aurors looked amongst themselves, clearly confused. Most drew their wands. Others shuffled about, already bored with the exchange they felt to be beneath them. Orian frowned at their obvious lack of discipline. There would be little resistance.

"Listen up, lass," called out a severely scarred wizard with an eye that roamed around and around without any discernable rhythm. "We are the Ministry of Magic. You lot signed a treaty with us and swore magical oaths. Now, I can tell you are a witch by your voice. Surely you don't want to get mixed up in this. Why don't you come and open the door?"

Harry snorted a laugh. Orian barely held one back himself. "See what I mean, lord?"

Miranda cleared her throat again, ignoring their side conversation. "By order of His Majesty Harry, the Lord Merlin, by the Grace of God King of the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, King of the Franks, Right Duke of Normandy, First Lord of the Moridunum, and Prince of Corinth, the Ministry of Magic is hereby ordered to disband until such a time as the King sees fit to restore it. His Majesty's Royal Army will enforce this directive. Aurors, stand down and remove the uniforms of your station."

The wizard with the spinning eye cast an unsure glance over his shoulder to another wizard that stood taller than the rest. The darker skinned man shrugged and held up his wand. The wizard with the spinning eye followed.

"Aurors, ready to fire!" he called out.

Orian drew his sword and called out to the battle host in the lobby below them. "Moridunum!" Then he brought the sword against his breastplate.

Without speaking, the battle host did the same.

Spells flew at the doors of the bank and barely made a dent against the superior magic that held them closed. The aurors looked down at their wands and readied to fire again. They did not have to.

Slowly, the doors to Gringotts creaked open as if guided by an invisible hand.

"That's more like it," the bubblegum-haired witch called out. She and the others strode forward confidently. Only the wizard with the spinning eye stayed back. The eye had stopped and was focused on the dark shadow that was beyond the doors, then his other eye – a normal one – filled with panic.

"No!" he shouted, but it was too late. At the same time he shouted no, Harry Potter looked over to Orian Throathammer and smiled a dark smile that would haunt the goblin lord for years to come; for, it was so cold that it reminded him of only death and loss.

"Kill them all."

And with that command, the Hammer of the Orcs descended on the wizarding world.

* * *

"_We could not fight the devil and the demons he commanded no more than we could fight the dark god that they served without question. We all died that day, even me. It is why my ghost haunts this place in this life and the next."_

_Auror Captain Alastor Moody_, _Enticing the Dragon_

**A/N: The response to this has been fair, but I am wondering if I should continue. Are many people actually reading this and enjoying it? Should I keep going?**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. JK Rowling owns it all. I am but a mortal quaking before the immortality of her idea.**

**A/N: I am stunned, to say the least. I did not expect that kind of support from you guys. Thanks so much! The reviews pushed me to get this out faster! I hope that you all will continue to read and continue to review!**

**Be forewarned that this chapter is not a fun chapter. It was not fun to write, but it tells a necessary part of the story. Let's see who all can guess what follows it. PLEASE REVIEW!**

**Chapter Seven**

At first, the wizards were confident that their magic would allow them to destroy the inferior beasts that descended on Diagon Alley.

When their spells failed to pierce the truesilver armor covering the horde, their confidence shattered and their resolve broke. They realized that the spells they used would not be enough; stunners would not get the job done. They had to use the darker spells that every decent wizard knew but refused to acknowledge. All those self-righteous wizards and witches who believed themselves incorrigible and above the evil of those such as the infamous Lord Voldemort picked up their wands and gave into the same lure of dark power that once drowned the Heir of Slytherin.

By then, it was too late. Three hundred goblin warriors charged in amongst their shops and stands. Most humans were dead a few seconds later.

The rest were dying.

Orian Throathammer closed his eyes and listened to the screams of the dying. So far, none of his warriors were dead; though, the real battle still awaited. That would come when they reached the Ministry. These were just the fodder, the common citizens. There was no glory in killing commoners. Warriors gained glory by killing other warriors. But in this case, even the Moridunum would kill commoners. Every wizard that bled would sing a song to the Blighted God, and on this day, the pits of hell would ooze with the melodies of human tongues.

Orian did not lead the charge. The legends told stories of great commanders leading charges into battle, but almost all of those great commanders met a terrible end in during their heroic charges. In a real battle, one in which an army meant to win, the commander did not enter battle until the enemy's line was broken. A real leader could not risk the initial charge that left many on both sides dead. The commander had to stay alive and keep his head clear to issue orders and plan strategies. He could not afford the distraction brought by a singing sword.

Orian was the commander while Harry Potter was Armageddon.

It took every bit of strength Orian possessed to not run out and join the Boy-Who-Lived. The King, no more than a human wizard, moved like no wizard Orian had ever seen. As the goblins marched, the King took the formation's point, heedless of the requests for him to take a safer position. As it happened, the King did not need a safer position. Wizard after wizard fell in the fiery fury burning from the young man. Orian's senses flared as the King tore into those he fought, sparing only small children; though, in truth it might have been less cruel if he had killed them.

The battle host did not falter in their sovereign's wake. Buildings burned and the streets smoldered. Flame and smoke billowed in every direction. The fires, a mixture of green, orange, and blue trapped occupants and roasted magical items. With each artifact or person consumed, the fire fed on the ambient magics that were released and strengthened itself until most of Diagon Alley and the side streets were burning.

Orian wanted to shout his battle cry and drink the blood of the fallen! Through fire and flame they had risen to take back their place. The heat did not bother them. Their skin was the skin of the Dark Ones. They were the Moridunum, servants of the Blighted God, Reapers of the Seven Worlds. Here, amidst the carnage, they were each a god.

No, they were demons.

Had Orian not been so caught up in his musing, he would have noticed the twisted and gnarled body of an auror that should have been dead. He would have seen the spinning eye as it settled on his back. He would have seen the green curse that sped towards him.

* * *

Dumbledore watched the world burn. Fudge had long since fled the Ministry with his council of undersecretaries. As Dumbledore already knew he would, the Minister proved to be little more than a coward hiding behind the façade of a powerful office. Fudge had left in shame. Only Dumbledore, the Auror Corps, and the Unspeakables remained to defend the Ministry.

While their intents were valiant and honorable, Dumbledore knew that each man and woman that stayed would die, him included. He hung his head in acceptance. Perhaps this sacrifice would be enough to save the world.

For all their efforts, the aurors could not hope to contain a war-hardened goblin battle host. The creatures were ancient, older than any wizard alive. Centuries of experience had sharpened their skills and blades. The Unspeakables could have held the Ministry for a time were it not been for Harry Potter and the thirteen of their brethren that the young man commanded, the thirteen of their brethren that were currently ripping through the wards and charms that protected the Ministry from dark wizards. Dark wizards like Harry Potter.

In that moment, Dumbledore recognized the greatest sin he had committed. Its avatar wore shining green eyes and raven-black hair.

Ten years ago, he abandoned Harry Potter to the confines of Azkaban. Distraught at his failure to legally protect the boy, Dumbledore sought solace in the fact that Harry would be protected from Lord Voldemort while in prison. It was a place the Dark Lord would never be able to reach the boy. Yet the truth remained despite his attempts to rationalize, he had failed. Harry Potter had been just another victim on the Ministry's long list of wronged victims.

But hadn't he tried? Didn't that count for something?

Dumbledore almost laughed. He knew better than to pretend he had ever helped Harry. It was not the law that had allowed the Ministry to take Harry to Azkaban. Only Dumbledore could take that blame, him and his fear.

The whole ordeal was older than anyone knew. It began years ago, on the day he stood before Number Privet Drive with baby Harry in his arms. Even then, Dumbledore knew what Harry would one day grow to be. The power of the future Lord Merlin had practically glowed on the child's skin.

Without a doubt, Harry Potter would shape the world.

He couldn't let that happen. If the child ascended to the throne without being prepared, before Dumbledore could mentor and guide him, the damage to the wizarding world would be catastrophic. If Harry tried to change too much too soon, it could be seen as a threat to the larger magical community, a community the majority of Britain did not know existed.

To the aged wizard, sealing away Harry's magic and putting certain charms in place around Privet Drive that ensured his family hated him seemed a simple enough plan. It would ensure that Harry could not ascend until Dumbledore allowed it. By that time, the Boy-Who-Lived would look on him as a kind and caring grandfather, the prefect Lord Protector of the Realm. But for all his planning, Dumbledore could not have possibly anticipated Azkaban.

The previous night had changed every lie Dumbledore had ever told himself. When he stepped off the boat and onto Azkaban Island, he had instantly felt the power vibrating around him. The wind and water practically hummed with the strength of an overbearing force of will, almost as if the world itself had risen up to embrace Azkaban where wizards had failed to do so before. Normally, a pervasive darkness surrounded the island, but what Dumbledore had felt was neither dark nor light. It had been the complete lack of either. Where there should have been an indicator as to the type of magic being used, one did not exist.

Only one thing can create such an effect. _Pure Magic. _Only one human family had ever been known to use Pure Magic without killing itself. Dumbledore knew then what the Minister refused to accept. The Lord Merlin had returned. Harry Potter had ascended.

Dumbledore sighed as he watched the aurors form into defensive lines. He tried to push away the prophetic thoughts that predicted their deaths. It was not good to dwell on death, even when facing it. To dwell on death made it seem scary, but death could not be scary. To the well-organized mind, death was but the next great adventure.

Besides, he had a plan.

* * *

The room was cold. That didn't bother her. It was always cold. The temperature had to be kept low to protect the artifacts from risks caused by any heat. She was the warmest thing every permitted to enter the room. The bulky robes she wore ensured that she kept the warmth to herself.

Luna Lovegood looked around the place she called home. It was far from what one would normally refer to as a home. Really, it was nothing more than four gigantic stone walls that supported miles of construction and soil. The underground chamber had no windows, not even charmed ones. Light also affected the artifacts under her care. Only the soft glow of flickering blue candles allowed her to see into the shadows cast by the large shelves that stretched across the room and formed two columns and ten rows spaced apart so that she barely had enough room for her tiny frame to shimmy between as she did now.

An arm brushed against a shelf. The delicate instruments rattled; she paused to allow them to settle. If even one broke, she would likely not survive the event. There was a reason that only she and the Head Keeper were allowed in the room. The instruments were not understood, and magic that is not understood is always dangerous. Still, someone had created the artifacts with a purpose, so the Ministry kept them, even if no one dared to touch them.

Time-turners. Normally, they were simple enough devices to use, but these were not the models the Ministry allowed certain people to use. Normal time-turners would only allow a person to travel back once in a six-hour period. The algorithm to make something like that work was extremely complicated, almost too complicated for even Luna to understand. Most witches and wizards could not fathom the intricacies.

Luna had a gift, though. Growing up, her mother trained her in the spell-creation art. Her aptitude for it had been astounding. Before she was nine, Luna could decipher basic formulas that formed common spells. When the accident happened, Luna gave up on spell-creation. It was too dangerous. Too many bad things could happen.

After all, spell-creation took her mother and drove her mad.

Try as she might to ignore the urge to delve into the most dangerous aspects of magic, Luna eventually fell to the temptation. It had not been for selfish reasons. It was only so she could know how her mother died. She had to know! And in the end, the hole in which her mother fell had gone so deep that it led her beneath the surface of the earth and to the fabled deep underground of the Ministry of Magic, the legendary Department of Mysteries.

In the end, Luna traced her mother's work to the place she had died and then even deeper to the cavern that could change it.

Now, she was an unspeakable and her wide blue eyes looked on shelf after shelf of tiny, ridiculously tiny, hourglass shaped crystals. They looked like time-turners, but time-turners were just crude knockoffs of the artifacts that had been placed under her care. These were the ones that had inspired the spell-creators to try and create the time-turners. These were the ones that had kept her mother busy so late into the night. These were the ones that had taken away Luna's childhood.

The crystals sparkled in the blue candlelight. For a moment, they seemed to match the pale strands of hair that hung about Luna's face. She smiled. The artifacts were beautiful, beautiful and older than the memory of any living person's great grandparents. With them, she would succeed where her mother had failed. Here, Luna could unlock the secrets of time, and change the world.

Slowly, Luna resumed her rounds. An hour earlier, an all-call had summoned her to the Atrium, but Luna had ignored it. The needs of some crazed politician could wait. She did not have the time. She was the Keeper of Time, and this was her cavern. No one controlled time.

Except her.

* * *

Miranda didn't know what to think. Before the King had ascended, she was content to serve as a loyal subject of the Moridunum, a castellan awaiting the new First Lord to resume his rightful place. Now, she followed blindly as wizards and witches died all around her.

That wasn't what she wanted. She knew that much without hesitation. Murder was wrong, even if the wizard did have a legitimate complaint against a certain faction of people, to kill all people associated with that faction defined genocide. Webster could barely have said it clearer. Yet, that was the command of the King.

Miranda sighed. The battle host had gone out before her while she and a few warriors tended to the rear of the horde, ensuring that no one could sneak up on the main group. The goblins with her were eager to do battle. The already large creatures grew even larger in the light of the fire raging through the Alley. The moans of the dying and the suffering did not bother them. It appealed to their nature. Unfortunately for her, she had a conscience, and it was screaming at her that this was wrong.

She had no love for witches and wizards. They had done nothing for her. The only witch and wizard she had ever known were own parents, the previous individuals to hold her position in the Moridunum. Even still, she had never fit in with the goblins. Sure, she loved many, like Orian, as family, but goblins were savage and powerful while she was meek and cautious. It was that caution that spoke to her now.

Harry Potter would lead the Moridunum to victory but at what cost?

Even if they won the day at Daigon Alley, the rest of the world would never allow them to savor their victories. wizarding communities around the world would rise up against goblins everywhere in response to the massacre in Britain.

Like the goblins of Gringotts, Britain's wizarding community was not a true representation of other wizards. From what her parents told her when she was younger, the other wizarding spots in the world were much stronger magically and possessed spells that British wizards only dreamed about in their worst of nightmares. Miranda didn't have a clue what her parents meant at the time, but after today, the idea terrified her, because if they were anything like Harry Potter, the goblins might as well lay down their swords.

A sinking feeling filled the pit of Miranda's stomach. Things would change that day. One way or the other, the Moridunum would forge a new place in the world. She only hoped that the place they forged did not have to be paid for with goblin blood.

The wizard blood made her sick enough.

Sighing, she turned and followed the battle host. Unfortunately, a witch chose that moment to run from one of the burning buildings. A goblin swung his blade in a wide arc to intercept the fleeing woman, but the blade never completed its mission. Miranda only felt a tiny prick on the side of her neck before she crumpled to the ground.

* * *

Harry had never taken a dueling class or a battle magics class. He hadn't received auror training or been handpicked to be a war-wizard. Before going to Azkaban, his grades were decent, but nothing about them stood out as being particularly grand. Until a few hours ago, he had thought himself to be just Harry Potter, a betrayed and innocent man whose lot in life was suffering and torture.

In Azkaban, at night, the screams of the tortured were the worse. They had driven him to the brink of sanity more than anything else. Even the dementors weren't as maddening as the tortured moans of his fellow inmates. The saddest thing was that Harry knew that many of the people in Azkaban were innocent. Once a person had been in Azkaban long enough, they learned to tell the difference between the guilty and the innocent. The guilty always have it the worst. They are haunted by their crimes, but the innocent grab hold to the knowledge that they don't belong there. It isn't much, but it holds off insanity for a while.

Harry didn't know why the dementors never broke him. They had tried. Oh, how they had tried. But he never gave in. Their powers made him remember all the times the Dursleys had abused him and all the times Dudley had beaten him. The dementors gave him the dying screams of his parents and the high cackle of their murderer. But they did not break him. To break would be to let the wizarding world win.

Now, as he looked at the Alley's entrance to the Ministry of Magic, his resolve to not let them win only grew.

Aurors had positioned themselves around the outer doors of the Ministry. The doors were not actually located on the Alley but on a small side street no more than two hundred meters long. His war wizards had already disabled the defensive wards that were placed along the street and on the building and were sneaking into the Ministry through secret entrances. Harry smirked. The aurors were fifty strong. No doubt more waited on the inside. They were afraid. He could practically smell the fear coming off them.

"Stop in the name of the Minister of Magic!" one of the aurors spoke.

Harry raised an eyebrow. Really? He shook his head at the read-haired auror. "Do you really think that will work?"

The auror raised his wand. "I will kill you, Potter," he said in a voice that quivered only slightly. "I remember what you did our first your. You betrayed Gryffindor, you slimy piece of scum."

That did make Harry pause. He stopped dead in his tracks, his mouth hung open. "Ron?" The question came out as a hushed whisper.

"Yeah, you stupid freak!" barked the red-headed auror.

Harry staggered back as if he had been hit. Ron Weasley hated him? His best friend in first year thought he was guilty of the obvious lie? Even after all these years, Harry remembered Ron and Hermione venturing into the restricted third floor corridor. They had been there when he faced Quirrell. Surely they believed him!

Then again, come to think of it, he had never seen them after he was arrested. Not one of them had testified at his hearing. A shooting pain went through Harry then, but he knew it had nothing to do with a physical ailment. It was betrayal. Plain and simple, Harry had been betrayed by those he had held most deal. Even his closest friends, or at least those he thought were his closest, had let him down in the end.

Ron took Harry's stumbling as an opening and attacked. A swish of his wand later, and a bright red Reductor Curse sped at the Boy-Who-Lived. The beam slammed into Harry's chest just as the goblin battle host rounded the corner from Daigon Alley. By then, smoke had filled the entrance to the small side-street and it appeared as though the battle host were coming out of the fire itself.

Spells immediately started flying, and no one but Ron saw Harry fall. The auror walked up to the fallen king, ignoring goblin and wizard alike. He sneered down at Harry and did his best to hide his shock that the blast had no killed his former friend. That curse could rip through walls. The Boy-Who-Lived should have been sporting a major hole in the chest region, but there only remained blackened robes and armor.

"You should be dead, you bastard," Ron said.

Harry didn't answer. He couldn't. The curse had knocked the air from his lungs. Seeing Ron caused him to drop his guard. He hadn't seen the curse coming until too later. Only the goblin-forged armor had protected him.

Ron knelt beside Harry and pressed his wand to the raven-haired wizard's throat. He smiled as the willow point stabbed the vulnerable flesh that protected his former friend. "You know, Harry, Hermione cried for you when you were arrested. She cried until the term ended. She never returned after that." His smile deepened. "I have hated you for that, too. How could you do that to Hermione?"

Harry wanted to answer so badly, but his insides burned from the smoke that he was gulping in instead of the much-needed oxygen that had been shoved out of his body when he fell. Feebly, he tried to grab Ron's wrist.

Ron knocked Harry's hand aside, leaned closer, and said in a low voice, "I will enjoy this." Without hesitation, he added in a hiss that would make any Parseltongue jealous, "_Avada Kedavra!_"

Green light swam over Harry Potter.

* * *

Dumbledore did not knock when he entered the lowest depths of the Department of Mysteries. The time for knocking was over. In an hour, knocking would matter anyway. Nothing matters to the dead.

"You can't be here!"

He ignored the voice that yelled at him just as he had ignored it when the woman who it belonged to attended Hogwarts. The madness of Luna Lovegood was famous. It was a small wonder to him that she had ever been accepted as an Unspeakable. Then again, it took someone slightly insane to work in the Department of Mysteries.

Instead of heeding the woman's warning, the aged professor pulled out his wand. Luna attempted to draw her own, but he flicked his wrist casually. A banishing charm caught her beneath the chin. An audible crack echoed in the chamber as her neck broke and she crumpled to floor.

It didn't faze the Headmaster. If this worked, Luna's death would not matter. None of it would. Everything would be righted. He sighed, braced himself, and forced his magic to the surface. The words of the spell came to his lips and exploded from his mouth in a rush of air.

"_MOBIAS ENUBIA!"_

Overhead, the ceiling twisted into a purple fog. A red beam thicker than his arm shot from his wand and raced towards the purple cloud. It collided in a flash. A shockwave lifted Dumbledore from his feet, and his world went dark.

* * *

"_It was then that we died. We all died. In one way or another, be it physically, mentally, emotionally, or magically, we died. Damn Harry Potter. May his soul rot in Hell for what he did to us."_

_Lord Draco Malfoy, __Enticing the Dragon_

**A/N: I am not pleased with this chapter. It was a very hard one to write. Without it, though, the story could not have been completed. This will open the way for the rest of the chapters and begins Part Two of the tale. I hope you enjoyed it more than I enjoyed writing it. Please give me your thoughts! You reviews help keep writing more!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. JK Rowling owns it all. I am but a mortal quaking before the immortality of her idea.**

**A/N: I am stunned once again, but not in a positive way. I did not anticipate my previous chapter letting so many of you down. I apologize, but it was necessary. I am releasing this earlier than I wanted to in attempt to save face.**

**Chapter Eight**

Harry descended through the darkness. He plummeted for hours, days, weeks, months, years. Time dragged on. He lost track; he forgot and remembered his existence more than once. Still, through the darkness he fell.

After decades passed and the last of his sanity left and returned, his descent stopped. Awareness came back to him; though, the darkness did not end. He reached out into it and found nothing. Not even his magic responded to the empty void.

"_Where am I?" _he wondered to himself. No words actually formed. The communication existed only in his mind. Nothing in the void could have heard the thoughts had they been words.

Of course, no one told the void that.

"You are here and there. You are at a moment of nothingness, in a vacuum between life and death. Does that knowledge comfort you?"

The voice was distinctly feminine. It would have startled Harry and might have caused him to react badly. Unfortunately, he appeared to not possess a body to actually react with. In fact, it had been so long since he had possessed a body that he barely remembered it. The last time he remembered having one, someone had tried to kill him.

"They did not try, Harry. They succeeded."

Wait, he was dead? How could he be dead? He was the king! He remembered that much. No one could kill him. He possessed the power of Merlin, the blood of House Emrys. Magic enveloped every part of his body like a glove. Death did not have sway over someone like him.

As if he could see the voice, he knew it was smiling. "Everyone is subject to death, Harry. Even I must die. Life is about death. Magic is about life. Therefore, it only makes sense that magic embraces life and death. You are wizard, even if only a small bit. Wizards die."

Suddenly, the black void peeled away like a curtain rolling back to reveal a stage of endless white. Only in this particular endlessness, Harry felt aware. His body took shape, and he could see where his feet were standing. A hard floor held him up. He wore armor and linen. A black stain, as if from an explosion, painted across his pale breastplate. At its center, the metal had been dented about twenty centimeters deep. It hurt against his chest. He reached over his shoulder and undid the latching. The armor clattered to the ground. It let out a deep, thudding echo.

"Are you sure that is wise, Harry?" the voice asked. "That armor might be all that stands between you and certain death. Are you willing to forsake it so easily?"

Harry paused. He hadn't thought of it that way. He bent over to pick up the breastplate but paused as his fingers grasped the cold metal. He dropped the armor and stood back up.

"I'm already dead," he said aloud. His throat hurt, and the words were painful to form. The muscles in his neck constricted like they hadn't been used in ages. Well, that was possible. He had been floating a very long time. "What good will a dented piece of armor do me if I am already dead?"

The endless white expanse shimmered in front of him. From the colorless gaping, a body formed. Fingers and toes came first, followed by arms and legs. The extremities elongated and crafted a shapely feminine torso, then a head with a strikingly beautiful face. The cheekbones were high, and the jaw was sharp and angular. The hair was blonde and shined like golden rays of sunlight. The eyes were the blue of the clearest river, and Harry felt as if he could stare at them for eternity and never reach their depths. A flowing, sleeveless gown fell from her shoulders to the floor and swept about the floor around her.

When the woman looked at him, Harry fell to his knees, trembling. Any thought of who he was and who he might be left him like a fleeting thief in the night. Her presence pushed against his mind, closing around him and driving away any other perception. The only thing he felt was her.

Harry the King suddenly felt very insignificant.

The woman did not appear overly concerned with Harry's difficulty at standing. She walked over to him, her pace graceful and precise. She placed a hand on his shoulder and traced the naked flesh until her fingers were curled under his chin. She lifted it up until he was forced to look her in the eye.

Harry shook under her touch and tried to look away but found that he could not. Her grip was like iron. Her flesh was as cold as ice. He could not even blink without her permission.

"You are powerful, young one," she purred. "Very powerful. Your ancestor was capable of such power, though his was spent trying to do 'good' and build things up. You have only torn things down and spilt the blood of innocents."

Anger flared up in Harry despite her unwavering grip. "I never killed an innocent."

She raised an eyebrow at the venom in his voice. "Oh, I see. So those people in Diagon Alley were not innocent? What crime had they committed?"

He frowned, but the lines in his face were etched with anger. How did the woman know about all that? Was she God? Was he being judged? "They allowed a place like Azkaban to exist. They have stood by while innocents were sent there and said nothing. That is evil enough to warrant death," he defended, believing every word without doubt.

The woman smiled. "Oh, my dear boy, you are so right. They are evil enough, but it was not for that reason. Did you not stand by while people were condemned to Azkaban as well? Remember that year of freedom you had in the wizarding world before Azkaban? Did you not stand by and allow it to happen then?"

Harry shook his head. "I was only eleven! I didn't know the prison existed."

"And they do? How many people in the wizarding world have ever had contact with a dementor? How many know the power such creatures possess or the pain they inflict? Had you ever heard mention of them until you arrived at the prison island?"

"No, but I was only eleven! I wasn't supposed to know!"

She smiled. "Ah, but you did other things. You knew every time your cousin hurt or abused a child while you were in grade school, did you not?"

Harry tried to answer, but when he opened his mouth, his brain informed him that it did not have a ready response. The woman had a point. He had known about Dudley being a bully. Hell, most of the time he had been the victim. But there were others, too. Dudley didn't just pick on him. His cousin bullied and hurt a lot of kids. Harry hadn't done anything about it. But that wasn't the same. He hadn't been able to.

"It is the same," the woman said, saving him the need to actually admit it. He probably would not have just out of principle. "You left others to suffer under Dudley because you were small and afraid. There was nothing you could do about it just like there was nothing your friends could have done for you."

Harry blinked, incapable of responding as his mind wrapped itself around her words. Was she right? Had he really just let it happen?

Images started to flash through his head. A ghostly figure formed itself from his memories and played out in the space between him and the woman like a television episode. He watched as Dudley and his gang cornered a small girl with pigtails. She wore a purple sweater and jeans. Harry frowned. He could see himself on the limb of a tree above them. The others did not see him sitting there.

"Leave me alone!" the girl screamed. She had to be about thirteen. Dudley could not be more than ten, but he was a lot bigger than her.

Dudley laughed. He moved closer to her. She backed into the tree Harry was hiding in. "Come on, Emma," Dudley said. He leered at her. "We just want a feel. No one our age has 'em yet."

The girl shook her head. There were tears in her eyes. Harry wanted to jump and help her, but the image of him in the tree snuggled closer to the trunk and tried to hide in the shadows made by the canopy. Meanwhile, Dudley and his gang moved closer to Emma, their hands reaching beneath her shirt as she tried to struggle around them. But it was pointless. They were too big. She was helpless.

"No! Leave me alone! Please, someone help!" was all that Harry heard as the image faded away.

The woman filled his vision again, but his thoughts stayed on the girl, Emma. She had moved away a few weeks later. Her parents had tried to confront the Dursleys, but Uncle Vernon was very influential in Surrey. Her dad had lost his job after threatening to go to the police.

Harry had done nothing.

"Do you deserve death, Harry? Could you have stopped those boys anymore than the common witch or wizard could have stopped you from going to Azkaban? Did Ron and Hermione betray you, Harry, like you betrayed Emma? Do you think she did not have scars just like you?" the woman asked.

Harry sat on his knees, frozen, his heart sinking. He would have turned away to hide the shame that rose to his face, but the woman still held tight to his chin. "What happened to her?" he stammered.

"She died a few months later," the woman told him, her voice tinged with sadness. "The stress of such things is often too much for a person to handle alone. Often times, they do not seek help. Her parents were distraught over their own issues. Her life descended into one of poverty and her father took up drinking. Her mother did not say it aloud, but she blamed Emma for their problems. If only the girl had been quiet… I wonder, Harry, if these things can be traced back to your indecision to act as well? Are you responsible for little Emma cutting her wrists?"

No! No! He couldn't be blamed for that!

"How could the wizarding world have kept you from Azkaban, Harry Potter? Did they know you? Did the whole world deserve to suffer for the mistakes of a few?"

A cold chill swept over Harry as he began to realize where he was. He was dead and his sins were coming to haunt him. In his anger, he had killed all those people. He had made them suffer because he had suffered. But they hadn't actually done anything, had they? He had killed them simply because he wanted to.

It was evil.

And this was his judgment day.

"Who are you?" he asked.

The woman smiled again. Her eyes flashed, making Harry cringe. "Names are powerful things, Harry Potter, especially for creatures like you and I. My true name you shall not have, and I insist you do not seek it. As for the name that mortals call me, there have been many. Personally, though, I prefer Michael, the Sword of God."

Harry had not gone to Mass very much, but the few times his aunt and uncle had taken him, he could remember very well. They always made him pay close attention to the litanies and then doused him with holy water on the way out, much more than the amount a person normally took. When the woman said her name, Harry remembered it well enough.

"The archangel?"

The woman nodded.

"Aren't you supposed to be a man?" Harry asked before he could stop himself.

The woman threw her head back and laughed. "A very entertaining thought, Harry! The image the Church has portrayed is that I am a man, but that is because of they are afraid of women. Men have tried to dominate women for years and failed where it really matters. The idea of male superiority is not a new one. It goes back for millennia. Naturally, the Church, an organization led predominantly by men, would write that I am a male. The truth is that I am neither man nor woman. I am an entity without sex, created by the very breath of the Almighty. Just as the Most High is above such things, so am I. You see me in a shape that is easy for you to comprehend, as you could not begin to fathom my true self. Based on the image I now hold, it seems that you view the female form as quite pleasing and even sacred. Interesting concept in a man. Most see me as a dark warrior holding a fiery sword. Your reverence of the female form will serve you well in the task ahead."

Harry swallowed. "So this is where you judge me? Am I going to Hell?"

The angel smirked. "Oh yes, I am sure that one day you will go to Hell, but that day is not today. It is not for me to judge your eternal resting place. Only one being can pass judgment of that kind. I am here for another reason."

Relief washed over Harry. He wasn't going to Hell. After what she had told him, he felt for sure he would spend the rest of eternity on a kabob being roasted over an open fire. But if he wasn't being judged, then what? What did an angel want with him? Wasn't he dead?

"Yes, you are dead. Rather, you were dead. You were killed. By your former best friend even." Michael smiled. "Strange thing that was. Ron Weasley was nowhere near your level in skill or power; yet, his words were able to touch you more than any magic could have. You were caught off guard and defeated quite easily for a rampaging warlord who had just decimated the second largest concentration of wizards in Britain. A fitting end to a foolish child, I would say."

The angel shrugged and changed her tone. "Even if your reasons were misguided and your actions were poorly executed, you have been given a second chance, one that would not have been possible had that meddling old codger not went and done something as equally as stupid as you had."

Harry just stared at her, still unable to move. "What do you mean?"

Michael frowned and released Harry's chin. The Boy-Who-Lived fell forward on all fours. "Dumbledore!" the angel shrieked. "He has giving me more consternation than any other mortal alive. That fool attempted to meddle with time using artifacts he could not possibly understand! What's worse, he would have succeeded had it not been for that Lovegood girl he killed. The presence of a dying body releases magics that Dumbledore should have planned for, but now he has gone and created a paradox, and guess who gets to fix problems when stupid humans mess things up on a giant scale?"

Harry was too busy enjoying his ability to move to answer.

Michael didn't wait. "Me! I have to fix all of it! Be glad you are not human, Harry Potter, or I would find following orders concerning you to be a lot more difficult." The angel sighed, her eyes glowing briefly with a storm of energy but settling down after she released a long breath of air. Who knew angels breathed?

"But as I was saying, this is fortunate for you. Normally, you would have been carted off to Judgment, but the Most High is of the opinion that extenuating circumstances might have muddled up your decisions a bit. See, you weren't supposed to go to Azkaban. You were supposed to continue on at Hogwarts, face that nasty Dark Lord of yours in your fourth year then, in your seventh year, kill him. As you know, it did not work out like that. You weren't even supposed to know that you had the possibility to ascend to Merlin's throne until way after that! You were to marry Ginny Weasley, remain friends with Ron, and lead wizarding Britain into the larger magical world once the goblins revealed to you your true heritage. You alone had the power to do it. Because of your heritage, you held claims to more than just the wizarding throne and the Moridunum. You could have united the world in ways that others would not have found possible."

Michael frowned. "Alas, it is not to be, at least not like originally planned. The whole Azkaban thing messed that up, and even I am not sure who dropped the ball there. The Most High would not tell me, and when he refuses to talk about an issue, it isn't usually a good idea to push it. So instead of being depressed over the failure of the original plan, we are following through with Dumbledore's attempts. We are going to send you back."

Harry could not bring himself to look up again. Michael's presence was too overwhelming. But he did ask, "Go back?"

Michael nodded. "Yes. Dumbledore meant to send just himself back so he could change things in order to keep an eye on you and mold you like he wanted. He did not expect for four others to die at the exact moment that his spell took effect. That allows us a window without bending too many rules. The bumbling fool already created a paradox we have to fix, so the Most High decided to allow the four souls captured in the spell to return with Dumbledore. You will be returning to a pivotal moment in your originating timeline: the end of your first year at Hogwarts, right before you are sent to Azkaban."

At this, Harry did react. He reacted quite forcefully. He didn't care what Michael said. Dead or alive, angel or not, Harry Potter would not be returning to Azkaban.

The Boy-Who-Lived shoved himself off the ground in a back handspring he did not know he was capable of completing. He drew magic around him, pulling on the ambient flow of power in the endless white that surrounded him. The area was alive with pulsating power. Hungrily, he latched on to it and formed it to his will. Then, he shoved out his hands in front of him. Tendrils of multi-colored power sped down his arm and soared through the distance separating him and the angel.

Michael did not move. He watched Harry calmly as the wizard pushed out the power. It flew at him like a wrecking ball, but just before it hit, the spell power shattered against an invisible wall in a shower of sparks. As it is with physics, when energy is expelled, there is usually a physical reaction. The surge of force from the explosion did not affect the archangel, but it plowed into Harry, throwing him several feet in the air then pounding him forcefully into the ground.

Harry gasped and tried to sit up, but the endless white expanse spun. He wasn't sure how he knew it was spinning since he had no stationary point to focus on, but somehow he could tell. Maybe it was all the stars he saw flashing?

Michael laughed and extended a finger. Harry rose a meter above the ground and floated back over to the angel. She curled her finger, and whatever was holding him dropped him to the ground once more. He landed with a thud.

"That was not wise, wizard. I am an archangel. What could make you think you are ready to fight me? Those skills you inherited from the Accord of Emrys may help you against wizards, but you aren't up to my level yet. That's going to take some training."

Harry groaned and tried to block out the pain long enough to answer. "I'm not going back to Azkaban."

Michael rolled her eyes, a decidingly undignified act for an archangel. "Are you that thick? Didn't I tell you that you weren't supposed to go to Azkaban? We are fixing that! You are going back to Hogwarts to finish your time there. You will rise to be king, and you will change the magical world. What, exactly, did you miss?"

Harry looked up at her, avoiding her eyes the best he could. "How am I supposed to do that? You told me that killing everyone is wrong." His face darkened as he remembered what he had done and the images of Emma from all those years ago. "I won't do that again."

Michael smiled. "We know. That is why you came here first. You had to understand why you are what you are and how much is resting on your shoulders. You are not human, Harry. You are one of us." She raised a hand as he tried to interrupt. "No, not an angel. I will not elaborate, but I will say this: the power within you comes from ancient blood. The crown you will wear has been ordained by God the Almighty, the Most High King. On earth, you will be his hand. From the darkness of your soul you will bring about his plan, and his judgment will be absolute. Do you understand?"

"No," Harry replied. He really didn't. How could he not be human? Sure, he knew he was a king. He even knew why he knew that. The spells on the crown of the First Lord of Moridunum activated when his magic was unlocked and gave him the necessary knowledge to understand the basics of who and what he was. Only the basics. He had only been king for a day before he went and killed everyone else. There hadn't really been a lot of time to look beyond that, but he was pretty sure the Accord of Emrys hadn't mentioned anything about him being non-human, sure a little bit fae, but still human.

Michael nodded. "It is good you do not understand. You will be less likely to mess it up if you don't." The air around Michael started to shimmer again. The endless white started to darken, and Harry could feel his body fading. "I will return you to the void now, Harry. When you come from it again, things will have changed. No matter what, Harry, do not forget what you are and the crown you possess. The darkness within you should not be denied, but there is a difference between darkness and revenge. There must always be a balance or evil will prevail." The expanse darkened, and he felt himself falling again. A whisper pervaded the last awareness his mind had as he slipped into the void. "Trust me, that is something you never want to happen. Just ask the old man."

* * *

The darkness of the void was pierced by something gold glinting just above him. It looked almost like a Snitch! He tried to catch it, but his arms were too heavy.

Wait, he had arms again?

He blinked. It wasn't the Snitch at all. It was a pair of glasses. How strange.

He blinked again. The smiling face of Albus Dumbledore swam into view above him.

"Good afternoon, Harry," said Dumbledore.

A knot formed in Harry's stomach. He was back at Hogwarts. He reached out for his magic to call it up, but he hit a wall as solid as stone. No. It couldn't be. The barrier! His magic was bound again!

**A/N: I hope this chapter has given me somewhat a bit of redemption in your eyes. I must confess that I hated writing the previous one, but it had to be written in order to set up for this one. I fear that every hero must have a flaw. They cannot be invincible, at least not right away. Even Harry Potter. After all, he's not a god… well, not exactly.**

**So, did I lose any of you? I received many flames that the story had taken a sour turn. Is it time to save what dignity I have left and end the story before it becomes worse?**

**As always,**

**Lord Derrick**


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. JK Rowling owns it all, and I make no money from it.**

**A/N: I was in a hurry to get this posted this morning, so I only looked over it once for mistakes. If you see any, please inform me and I will fix immediately. Thanks!**

**Chapter Nine**

_He blinked. It wasn't the Snitch at all. It was a pair of glasses. How strange._

_He blinked again. The smiling face of Albus Dumbledore swam into view above him._

"_Good afternoon, Harry," said Dumbledore._

_A knot formed in Harry's stomach. He was back at Hogwarts. He reached out for his magic to call it up, but he hit a wall as solid as stone. No. It couldn't be. The barrier! His magic was bound again!_

"H-how?" Harry stammered, his voice thick with the fear he felt. Realization started to form at the edges of his mental capacities. Michael said that he would be going back in time, that Dumbledore created some kind of paradox to allow it. Almost immediately, Harry knew where he was, and more importantly, when he was.

Dumbledore mistook Harry's fear for worry. He raised a hand and the wrinkled lines of a smile thickened on his aged face. "Calm yourself, dear boy, you are a little behind the times," he said. "Quirrell does not have the stone."

Harry caught himself before he could snap a reply. He KNEW Quirrell did not have the stone. He had killed him. That was not news. But Dumbledore did not know that Harry knew. He did not realize that Harry had come back in time with him. If the old man did, he was a really good actor. Had he known, Harry doubted that Dumbledore would have given him the benevolent grandfather treatment.

So Harry had an advantage, one that might keep him from going to Azkaban again.

_Play the part, _he thought to himself. "T-then who does? Sir, I-"

"Harry, please relax, or Madam Pomfrey will have me thrown out." The old man's eyes sparkled as he spoke.

Harry swallowed and looked around him, unconsciously avoiding the Headmaster's glittering eyes. He was lying in a bed with white linen sheets. A row of similar beds lined a long stone wall. A chair sat between each bed. Above the chairs, there were metal tracks in the ceiling that circled the bed. White linen curtains hung to the floor from the tracks; though, at the moment they were all pushed firmly against the wall and covering very little from his view. Across from him, the stone split apart to make room for a giant fireplace. A normal, warm fire was burning in it, nothing magical about it.

His eyes settled on a pile at the end of the bed that threatened to block out the fireplace. He didn't remember it from the first time he had been in this situation. In the first timeline, the only thing that awaited him waking up was the Headmaster's sad smile and four aurors with magical restraints to bind his magic. On the table in front of him, there were no magical restraints and only Dumbledore appeared to be in the room. He actually had to fight a smile as he looked on the first pieces of candy he had seen in over ten years.

"Tokens from your friends and admirers," said Dumbledore, beaming. "What happened down in the dungeons between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret, so, naturally, the whole school knows. I believe your friends Misters Fred and George Weasley were responsible for trying to send you a toilet seat."

His heart sank at those words. The whole school knew already. So much for trying to hide it from the public. Everyone knew he was a murderer and would be calling for blood. The wizarding world did not give someone the chance to explain their actions. They simply prosecuted. Trials were little more than shams. In his time, he had barely received even the sham. In fact, they had not even let him testify for himself. The Ministry provided solicitor barely tried to argue the point. When the gavel fell and Harry was sentenced to Azkaban for life, the man shrugged, shook Harry's hand, and congratulated him on not getting the Dementor's Kiss. This time, if the whole school knew of his actions against Quirrell, he doubted they would give him the luxury of a fake trial. He'd be back in Azkaban before nightfall.

That was not going to happen. Harry Potter was done lying down and letting things happen to him. His powerful magic was gone, but he still remembered who he was. The information the Accord of Emrys gave still fed to him like a constant stream, centuries of knowledge and experiences coursing through his brain. Information like the kind he now had gave him insights into the broader world, the world the wizards and witches of Great Britain knew nothing about. He might be in an eleven year old body again, but he had more than enough mental resources to escape and live on his own before the aurors arrived. In time, the vast stores of energy within him, the currents that allowed him to reach beyond the capabilities of a normal human and create issues of his will, would return. He would form paths through the blocks and tap the incredible source. Until then, he would wait in the lonely darkness, hiding from his pursuers beneath the shadow of the larger world. Their ignorance would prove too much for the deductive reasoning that could so easily lead them to him. At that thought, Harry really did want to smile. Humans, even magical ones, were all reliably alike in one way: they lied to themselves about the most obvious truths. He wondered what he was lying to himself about.

Harry thought about the goblins. Orian Throathammer had sworn allegiance to him once before. The goblin lord surely would again. He shook that idea from his head. No. The goblins respected one thing: power. Without the power of House Emrys, he was little more to them than a slave. By and large, goblins hated humans. If he showed up proclaiming his sovereignty over the Goblin Nation, he would likely be served up for dinner. Bad idea.

"Harry, are you alright? Do I need to summon Madam Pomfrey?" asked Dumbledore, his concerned voice cutting through Harry's thoughts.

The Boy-Who-Lived blinked. In his scheming, he had forgotten the one person that this entire foray back in time centered around: Dumbledore. The Headmaster might play the crazy old man, but Harry knew better. Michael believed that Dumbledore was a key enough figure that he was able to alter what should have happened. Harry didn't know much about divine plan, but he knew a mortal should not be able to do something as cataclysmic to the plan has Dumbledore had. Something about the Headmaster struck a raw cord with Harry, and it just wasn't the whole Azkaban thing. Dumbledore knew more than he let on, and that knowledge probably included aspects of the greater magical world, probably enough so that he could find someone hiding in it if he tried.

So much for hiding in the open.

"No," Harry replied, trying to make his voice shake. He rubbed his forehead and felt a slight sting where his scar was. Odd. He hadn't felt that in a long time. "I think I'm just a little confused from all that is happening."

Dumbledore smiled again. "That is to be expected, my boy. You have been through a lot. You and your friends' bravery saved many lives and thwarted the rise of Lord Voldemort."

_Voldemort_. Now that really was something he had not thought about in a while. When one is locked within Azkaban and surrounded by some of the most evil personas of the modern error, one tends to forget far off threats that are represented by intangible spirits. For ten years, Voldemort had been little more than a bad dream amongst nightmares.

"So he is dead?" Harry asked.

Dumbledore's eyes held a brief flicker of sadness in them before they returned to their normal sparkling blue. "No, Harry, he is not. He is still out there somewhere, perhaps looking for another body to share… not being truly alive, he cannot be killed. He left Quirrell to die; he shows as little mercy for his followers as he does for his enemies. He is truly evil, the scourge of everything that is wrong with our society, my boy. He would sooner kill every wizard alive than allow those he felt to be unworthy live, even if it meant that the world burned in his wake."

Harry strained not to react in any way that might give him away. Dumbledore described his actions in Diagon Alley perfectly. He had killed everyone but children and burned all that his victims left behind, and he had done it without remorse, remorse that he should feel even now. But he didn't. He did not feel sorry for what he had done. His only regret was letting someone like Ronald Weasley bring him down. He regretted the emotion and stab of hurt he felt at his former friend's judgment.

Never again. No one would ever make him feel inferior again. Michael, be damned. If he were to be the harbinger of the Most High, then so be it, but he would not be a pawn of wizards lesser than him. He was their King! If it meant that he would have to burn their ignorant, pathetic society to the ground once more in order to take what was his, then so be it. The world would be a better place without such bigots and fools.

And that gave him his new idea. Carefully controlling his emotions, he said, "Sir, what is going to happen now? Am I in trouble?"

Dumbledore had enough bearings to pretend to be confused by Harry's question. "Why would you say that, Harry? Your actions saved this school. I should think that deserves a reward, not a punishment."

"But sir," Harry argued, "I killed Professor Quirrell."

The Headmaster looked at Harry with genuine sympathy. He reached a wrinkled hand out and took Harry's hand in it. His grip was surprisingly firm. "Harry, you cannot let the actions of Lord Voldemort fall on your shoulders. You have nothing to feel guilty about. What you did was extremely admirable and more than what many older than you would not have been able to do. In order to get the stone, you had to want to find the stone – find it, but not use it – otherwise, you would not have been able to retrieve the stone from the Mirror of Erised. Had you any thought of creating gold or drinking the Elixir of Life, you would not have succeeded. That says more about your character than anything. In the face of death, you did not have desire for the one thing that could circumvent death; instead, you wanted to save it from being used. No, Harry. Do not let yourself be blamed for the death caused by the Dark Lord. Your actions were nobler than his could ever be."

Reward? He wasn't going to Azkaban? They weren't even going to try? For a moment, the room spun as elation filled him. The release of tension must have been obvious, because as his shoulders relaxed, Dumbledore looked at him speculatively and tried to meet his eyes. Harry instinctively looked away.

Suddenly, the Headmaster released Harry's hand, stood, and cleared his throat. "I fear the afternoon is progressing rather quickly. I have many things still to do, so I must leave you to your sweets. Take care, Harry. The days ahead of you are going to be difficult as they are for any teenager, but life will always have moments of joy to look forward to if one lives his or her life in a noble manner."

With that, the Headmaster left, his periwinkle robes swirling around him in a way that did not look even remotely ominous. Harry frowned. Had he given himself away? He sighed and leaned back on his bed. His eyes focused on the candy at the end of the bed. Tentatively, he reached out with his senses, clawing at the ambient magic in and around the castle. With a deep, exhaled breath, he pushed out his will, molding the energy to desires, and… nothing.

Harry fell back against the headboard, tired from the battle with Quirrell and the attempt he had made. It was useless. For now, his magic was bound. He closed his eyes and almost instantly drifted off to sleep, thinking only of the future and what it meant not going to Azkaban. Had he stayed awake a moment longer, he might have felt the chocolate frog box roll off the table and land by his foot.

Maybe things weren't so useless.

* * *

Goblins and orc cried out. They shouted, snarled, and growled. The deep, underground caverns vibrated in sound with their fury. The battle cries were not as one. They were many, but they spoke with different words. They told different stories. Each syllable, whether recognizable as language or not, carried with it the blood of the fallen and the promise of the ghosts who were to come.

Orian Throathammer awoke to it. Rather, that is how he came to be aware.

He did not have time to think. An axe flew at his head. On reflex, he rolled away. He could have blocked with the sword he held, but no warrior used his weapon so casually without knowing what else it could be used for. Had he blocked the axe and a second weapon had followed, he would have placed his momentum into the defense of one blow and missed the second. It was the surest way to die in battle. Many goblins, both young and old, had fallen in just such a manner.

The warrior who had thrown the axe followed the weapon, springing through the air with the grace of tiger. In each of his hands, he held knives, knives aimed at Orian. The goblin lord did not waste time on moving. He tucked and rolled forward, going below the flying goblin with speed that few of his kind possessed. The warrior flew overhead and landed where Orian had been standing. His knives slashed thin air.

Before the warrior could turn, Orian had rolled to his feet and started toward the younger goblin, his awareness beginning to extend to the crowd around him. He had lived centuries and knew the ritual happening very well. It was a challenger's circle. When a goblin wished to move up in the ranks of the Goblin Nation, they challenged the one above them in a battle to prove who was stronger, and by default, deserved the position more. Orian had been challenged many times, but only once by one so much younger, and so much lower in the hierarchy than him. He had killed that goblin.

The warrior spun, knives flashing, and Orian almost didn't block them in time. The High Lord stumbled backwards amidst jeers from the onlookers and mocking laughs of surprise. No proper goblin warrior would have been so easily caught off guard. His failure to block the blow would cause dissention and doubt even if he won the match. Orian grimaced at the thought, but did not dwell on it. He focused on the goblins face, a face he had already seen before, one that should be dead.

Then Orian remembered. All the events of the past few days came rushing back, including the falling sensation as death took him. He remembered the King ascending, the boy Harry Potter, and the attack of the wizarding alley. He remembered the fire and death, and for a brief moment, his bloodlust flared. His anger at being defeated by a crippled human rose in him like a roaring river. He let out a giant battle cry and charged the younger goblin who dared to challenge him. From his lips came a cry so great that the goblins on the front lines of the challenger's circle trembled.

The young goblin faltered mid-swing at the sight of the ferocity of the Hammer of the Orcs. His arms dropped, and he thought to turn, but the hilt of Orian's sword collided with his forehead, piercing flesh and cracking skull. The gobbling staggered for a moment, his strength pushing past the pain to try and swing the knives again, but they had already fallen from his hands due to the pure force of the High Lord's blow. Only his fists struck; even they did not land. The goblin lord was simply too fast, too strong.

Orian spun, avoiding the younger goblin's attempts. His sword swung wide and quick. It sliced through both of the goblin's wrists. He spun the blade as it came back around and used the momentum to thrust it through his adversary's throat. The goblin fell to the ground, lifeblood pooling around him as the last of his breaths ended in the gurgled sounds of labored choking.

A goblin did not turn his back on a worthy foe; it was dangerous. A living target was still a fighting target. To ignore that philosophy either designated the target as too little of a threat to worry about, thus making the target unworthy, or showed the goblin warrior's own stupidity. None, even those that hated him, thought Orian Throathammer to be stupid. Those that did usually died facing his back.

Around him, goblins cheered and stomped their feet. They beat their weapons against their armor in celebration, calling out to the Blighted God, exalting their High Lord above them. Normally, he would have basked in the savory taste of a victory and drank from the blood of his victim, but his thoughts drifted elsewhere. His eyes scanned the crowd looking for the one other being who might be able to answer that question. After a moment, he found her. Pushing through the hordes of congratulators swearing fealty, he went to her. Their eyes met – human and goblin – in a way that few of such a pair could. The second he looked in her blue eyes, his brief hope faltered. She did not know, either.

What was going on?

* * *

Dumbledore's office looked exactly like he remembered it looking ten years earlier. That is to say, it looked the exact same as it would ten years in the future, save the addition of the Sword of Gryffindor Neville Longbottom would pull from the Sorting Hat next year. He rubbed his head. That thought even confused him, and the whole time travel thing had been his idea.

He sighed. The spell had worked, obviously, but something was off. Every time he had tried to use Legilimency to gauge if Harry had been somehow damaged by his return, the boy had averted his eyes. Then, despite his best efforts to act pleasant and concerned towards the boy, Harry had reacted like a caged animal, tense with the anticipation of punishment, much like Dumbledore had observed from those who had been housed in Azkaban before.

"Troubled, Albus?"

His hand jumped for his wand as he looked up, startled by the sudden voice. He stopped halfway. The wand wouldn't have done him any good anyway. Standing across from him was a figure whose skin and hair were as black as the darkest, starless night. Only two orbs of pure white pierced the black in the space where there should have been eyes. Upon its body, the figure wore red armor in the shade of crimson blood. The armor shimmered as Dumbledore looked at it, and he found that he could not focus on it. A long sword hung from the figure's waste.

Dumbledore sat back and rolled his eyes. "Michael, I do not have time for this today."

Michael, the Sword of the Most High, laughed an uncharacteristically boisterous laugh, clutching his stomach as he did so. "That's funny, Albus. Really it is seeing as how it appears that you have nothing but time lately."

Dumbledore flinched. "You know?"

The archangel shrugged and took one of the seats in front of Dumbeldore's desk. He stretched out and propped his feet up on the desk. "What part of Most High God don't you understand, Albus? He knows everything; thus, so do I. In fact, we all do," Michael said, spreading out his hands.

The Headmaster's eyes widened in realization. "He orchestrated this?"

"No, you stupid mortal," Michael laughed.

Anger sparked behind the twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes. He jumped to his feet with agility that no one his age should possess, agility that most humans in general had trouble possessing. The walls shook. The desk trembled. Books flew from the walls, and the portraits left their frames for safer ones. "I am a god!" Dumbledore cried, his voice striking out with the strength of thunder.

Michael, to his credit, did not so much as flinch. In fact, he left his feet on the desk and used the back of his hand to cover a yawn that escaped his open mouth. The room grew colder, and the candle flickered, losing some of their light. After a moment, the archangel, sighed, rolled his eyes, and raised a single finger. "Correction, Albus. You were a god. Now, you are little more than a wandering immortal cursed to the form of mortals, driven to suffer the birth and death of those you manipulated for so long. Do not think that I do not know why you have allowed the wizarding world to fall so behind on times, Albus. You hide, hoping that those you once lorded over will not realize that their former deity of cruelty has fallen beneath them."

"Stop there, Michael. You will not speak to me like that," Dumbledore hissed, though some of the thunder had left his voice. "I am still more than you."

"You are a meddling fool," Michael laughed. "Did you really not think that we would see your attempt and arrange a surprise for you?"

Dumbledore considered the archangel before replying, "You sent him back with me."

Michael nodded.

Suddenly, Dumbledore screamed at the top of his lungs and fire erupted from every part of his body, forming the shape of a man before gathering a sphere and leaping at Michael. The archangel was faster. In a single motion, he stood, drew his sword, and thrust it into the flame. The fire gathered around the blade, swam up it, and faded to a soft flicker that coalesced along the black iron. Michael held the sword up, and Dumbledore was thrown back into the chair like an invisible hand had pushed him.

The Headmaster fell into the cushions, gasping desperately for breath. Through his shudders, he managed to say, "You are playing with things beyond your control, Michael. You have brought doom on us all."

The archangel rolled his eyes. "Stop being so melodramatic, Albus. You give the boy too much credit."

Dumbledore grimaced in pain. "What do you think will happen when he realizes the truth? Do you think he will forgive you for sending him to Azkaban, Michael?"

At that, Michael frowned, any sign of amusement leaving his face. He raised sword. "It will not be from you that he finds out, that is for sure." His voice dropped. The flames on his sword grew larger and more furious. "By edict of the Most High God, you are forbidden from interacting with Harry Potter in ways beyond that of any other mortal."

A weight pressed down on the old man's shoulders. He tried to push against the force, but he failed and slumped in his chair once. Breathlessly, he panted, "If I were you Michael, I would pray that Harry Potter does not become aware of your scheming. If he does, for your sake, I hope the Most High will have mercy on you."

Michael smiled again; though, this smile was sad and dark. "If he does, Albus, I hope the Most High will have mercy on us all."

**A/N: Surprising to anyone? Did anyone see it coming? Let me say this. I do not put religion in my fictions. I do not believe in religion. I believe in God, but I do not believe in the organization of religion that has become little more than a political front on our earth. Glory be to God and blessed is His Church, not the politicians who try to use them. (It should be noted that the fanfic's view of the Most High is not in line with my own.)**

**In addition, several people have been upset with the death of Tonks. Clearly she is no longer dead. Many, and I do mean many, suggested I should use her as a sex slave. That's just… I will NEVER use anyone as a sex slave in my fics! Now, that being said, in the description of this fic, it is stated that this will feature Harry with multiple partners, one being Luna Lovegood. I did not state that he will have them at the same time, but several people suggested the idea. So I will poll the readers, should Harry have more than one partner at a time?**

**Thoughts? Please REVIEW! It really helps me write.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. JK Rowling owns it all, and I make no money from it.**

**Chapter Ten**

The only person to survive the Killing Curse did not look over his shoulder at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as he walked down the narrow path leaving the castle's grounds. For three days, he had hidden in the Hospital Wing, begging off a constant stream of visitors. Simply complaining to Madam Pomfrey that he felt weak did the trick. After that, not even the professors could make it past the healer.

The solitude gave him the peace to think through a few things. He was eleven years old, soon to be twelve. The world wasn't exactly open to him. An eleven year old boy, even a wizard, could not simply walk about on his own and expect not to be questioned. Staying at Hogwarts might have been beneficial in that it was where people expected someone his age, but it came with too many restrictions. To do what he had to do, he needed freedom, freedom Hogwarts did not allow. No matter what he did or where he went, Dumbledore would be watching. If Dumbledore were not watching, one of the other professors would surely be just around the corner.

He needed freedom and power. That left one option.

Harry took a breath as he stepped over the line that bound the wards around the wizarding school. Ancient magic, older than almost any he had felt before, washed over him. The school was an epicenter. It bound together elements of the natural world and formed a nexus of controlled energy. Over the centuries, it had slowly become part of the flow. The earth's inherent magic had acclimated to Hogwarts. Outside of the castle's massive pull, Harry felt an emptiness worm its way into the back of his mind.

_That's surprising. _He had not expected to miss Hogwarts, to physically feel the longing for the castle. It meant he had a compulsion placed on him. Were all students so linked to the castle? Did that account for why Wizarding Britain seemed to center on the coming and goings of a school? He filed that away for later examination. It would explain quite a lot behind why someone as power hungry and manipulative as Albus Dumbledore stayed on as Headmaster when he could have been Minister of Magic on several different occasions.

The change in the atmosphere outside of the school was immediately noticeable. While on the grounds, the air buzzed with magic. Outside, it was something different all together. The night air was chilly, despite it being June. Scotland never got really warm at night. He pulled his cloak tighter around him. He stopped a moment and looked from side to side. The path down to Hogsmeade was lined by trees on both sides. The forest stretched for miles, weaving along the river and through the highlands. Except for the village and the castle, the land was mostly untouched. Several paths were laid out in front of him. Which one was the right one?

He stared down the empty trail that ended at the quaint village. Fires could be seen through building windows, giving life to the tiny shops. Civilization. His civilization. His people. Harry tightened his hands into tight fist. His hand closed around the shaft of the phoenix feather wand that had been taken from him so long ago. Within that little, thin piece of wood, there resided the one thing that could change his fate and help him gain everything he wanted, everything he deserved.

He raised the wand and pointed it at the nearest building. He felt the fire building, the fury boiling to be unleashed. His desires threatened to take over, and he almost closed his eyes to give in. His hand shook with the spell that threatened to explode from the wand. Then, at the last moment, he stopped, sighed, and cast a disillusionment charm on himself.

_No. I tried that already. _ Destruction would not give him what he wanted. It would burn the plague of wizardry to its core so that he could rebuild it, but in his current state could he really face those who would stop him? Harry sighed. He had to be smart about what he did. Strategy and planning had to win out over rash decisions driven by the blooming of puberty.

Sinking into the darkness offered by the trees, Harry crept silently through the shadows. He stopped at the first building he came to and peered through the window to the blazing fireplace. A bag sat on the mantle. Floo powder, just what he needed.

It was well after midnight. The room appeared to be empty. Most decent people were sleeping at this hour. As carefully as he could, he muttered an unlocking charm and lifted the sliding window. When it reached to a point wide enough for him to sneak in, he let out a relieved breath and shimmied through the opening. He tumbled on the floor on the other side with a resounding thud.

_Bugger me! _Harry swore to himself. He paused, listening for any reaction by the building's inhabitants. After a few seconds, he hadn't heard anything. Swallowing, he allowed the tension to leave his shoulders and made his way across the floor. The room appeared to be the cottage's main sitting room. A small sofa and two comfortable looking chairs surrounded three sides of a coffee table parallel to the fireplace. A red carpet was snuggled under the chairs and sofa.

He reached the fireplace and grabbed at the bag only to have it tugged out of his reach. The trickle of magic from a summoning spell just barely registered on the edge of his senses. He whirled around, wand raised. He moved too slowly. He came face to face with a tall man wrapped in a sleeping robe that hung open to reveal an overlarge gut and blue boxers. The man had short-cropped hair and a thin shadow of whiskers from not shaving. The saddest part of the whole ordeal was the wand he pointed at Harry. Had the man wanted to, he could have cursed Harry twice before the boy even turned around.

_I'm too slow, _Harry thought.

"Gah, another brat from the school. I get a few of yous every year, boy. All of yous trying to run away from the school for one reason or another. Ain't ever understood it. No worries at the school," the man rambled. He gave Harry a look up and down, but his gaze stopped at Harry's forehead. His eyes widened. "Gah, ain't you Harry Potter?!"

That was all the time Harry needed. He waved his wand and sent a stunner hurtling at the large man. Even such a simple spell noticeably drained his reserves. The spell he should not have learned for another three years landed and toppled the big man to the floor. Unfortunately, he wasn't strong enough to knock the man completely unconscious. Harry hurried and grabbed the bag of floo powder, ignoring the dazed wizard groping drunkenly for his wand. He threw a handful of powder into the fireplace, stepped into the suddenly green flames, and shouted, "Gringotts!"

He saw the man stumble to his feet just as the flames swirled around him and he zoomed through the ways of floo travel.

* * *

Moments later, Harry tripped out of the floo and into the lobby of Gringotts Bank, a lobby he had gotten to know very well just a few days before. There were not as many tellers at night as there were during the day. Only one goblin sat behind the high, ornately decorated desks. The small creature looked back at Harry with a raised eyebrow.

"Good evening, sir. How may I help you?" the goblin asked in an absolute neutral voice.

_Right. The plan. _ Harry straightened up. He attempted to pull in every bit of sophistication and authority an eleven year old could muster. The words came to him, fed from the Accord. "I am here to honor the ancient ways. I submit myself before the Council to have my past and present judged."

The goblin did not speak. Silence hung in the air. Emptiness. Neither human nor goblin moved. Harry wanted to break the silence, but from what he could tell from the information provided by the Accord, he had to wait for the goblin to speak first. The goblin's reply would determine what happened next.

"Who are you to ask for such a thing, _human_?" The goblin spit the last word more than said it.

"Harry Potter. I submit myself before the Council to have my past and present judged."

The goblin sneered. "The savoir of the wizarding world goes behind the Ministry's back to claim a meager inheritance. Do you value money so much that you would break the laws of your own kind and side with goblin kind?"

Harry looked the small creature in the eye, his gaze unflinching. To look away would show weakness and submission. He was not here to submit. Ministry laws would prevent him from claiming his rightful inheritance until he came of age. Only an old treaty with the goblins would allow him to circumvent the Ministry in this. The goblins could proclaim him worthy through merits of his characters and actions. Their proclamation, made possible by a clause in the treaty that allowed for goblins to proclaim the Heir of House Emrys, would give Harry full access and rights to his inheritance. While that would not give him the magical power he once had, it would legitimize him in the Ministry and in political circles. It would give him some leverage to prevent Dumbledore from manipulating too much of his life.

He cleared his throat and replied, "I accept the burden this prepares and offer my life should it harm the goblin people." That offer would mean nothing when the Blood of Emrys was detected. The goblin nation would have no choice but to recognize his claim. Orian and the other High Lords would know within minutes.

The goblin nodded. "Very well."

The deal was sealed.

* * *

Dumbledore felt the wards fold around Harry Potter right as it happened. Three days earlier, he might have done something to prevent his young charge from escaping so easily. The boy had no idea what he was doing. The forces at play – the ones pulling the strings – were a lot bigger than Harry realized. The Boy-Who-Lived had no idea the darkness such powers could rain down on him.

But maybe that's just what the boy needed.

Dumbledore stilled his hand and watched. He opened himself to the magic intertwined in the castle and joined with it. Suddenly, he was no longer seeing his office. His vision extended and widened until it encompassed all of the countryside surrounding Hogwarts. Not for the first time, the simplistic, natural beauty of the highlands awed him. Dumbledore had not always been a wizard. Once, he had been a being of such natural beauty, an entity of Creation, forged into being by the same cosmic power that had shaped the Universe.

The Headmaster pushed away the awe and focused on his intended target. He saw the teenage wizard step off the path and into the shadows. Clever. The boy obviously retained something. No doubt, the last Lord Merlins had done their best to ensure that the future heir would be well prepared to take his spot on the throne. Dumbledore had never focused too much on the past Lord Merlins. Until a century and a half ago, he had never even cared about what humans did or did not do. Until then, humans had been little more than pawns for him to achieve his goals.

He watched patiently as Harry snuck in through the window. He saw the older wizard enter the room before Harry did. The Boy-Who-Lived didn't even notice he wasn't alone until the summoning spell left the man's wand. Dumbledore smiled. Good. The heightened reflexes were gone. Michael had not been able to change everything. Dumbledore almost laughed out loud when Harry's stunner did little more than knock the man off his feet. Obviously, the blocks were still in place. Harry possessed power barely on par with that of an average eleven year old wizard. Good.

_Good._

The Headmaster's office rumbled, bringing him back to reality. Hogwarts could only channel so much power from the wards into him. The castle was old, but Dumbledore was older, far older. If he tried to draw on too much of the ancient castle, it made the wards unstable. He sighed and let go of his tie to the building. The shaking slowly subsided and the normal hum of ambient energy returned.

Dumbledore stood, his bones cracking under the stress of the sudden movement. Somehow, he had to keep ties with Harry. He would follow the mandate set down on him. He didn't have much of a choice about that. When the Almighty gave an order, lesser beings followed. Its how things worked. Only humans were capable of escaping his directives.

Then it hit him.

_Humans._

He was human now.

A smile started to form on Dumbledore's aged face. His blue eyes sparkled and danced like they had not done in decades. He raised the Elder Wand – the wand he had pried from the hands of its previous owner – and pointed it at the fire. Time to call an old friend.

* * *

Orian stared helplessly at the Moridunum Beacon. The massive crystal basin sat empty; the eternal flame that should be burning it was not to be seen. Around its base, several lesser goblins in robes tended the peat and oil, ensuring that the fire could be sparked when the time came. Only Orian and another knew that the Heir to House Emrys lived. These peons had no clue that their king would more than likely come in their life time. They just aimlessly fulfilled a purpose, not really caring how they did it.

The well-muscled goblin took a deep breath and drew up to his full height. The armor he wore bulged tightly over the powerful muscles. His eyes narrowed. A deep, guttural growl rolled from his throat, reaching out to no one in particular. He spun around and stalked towards his private quarters. He needed to be alone to go over his thoughts.

In the three days since whatever had brought him to this period in time had happened, every waking moment was filled with thoughts of the young Lord Merlin. His liege lord was out in the world alone, possibly ignorant of his rightful place. Yet, what could Orian due? To enter the wizarding world and find him would violate so many treaties that the Ministry of Magic probably wasn't even aware of all of them.

He did not acknowledge the guards posted outside his quarters. He pushed through the door and into the open, dimly lit room. Only, he wasn't alone. Standing in the center of the room next to a little brazier, Miranda waited for him. His eyes allowed a quick scan of her person. She wore a pencil skirt and white blouse, standard attire for the young witch. As usual, her hair was tied into a tight bun. Her blue eyes were lit with excitement as they stared through the thin glasses on her tiny nose.

"You have something?" Orian asked without prompt.

Miranda bowed, an impressive feat considering the level of flexibility her outfit allowed. "Dreadlord, it is not much, but I discovered what brought us here."

Clearly, by the way she was looking at him, she wanted to tell him more than "not much." He sighed. "Just tell me, Miranda." He rarely had the patience to listen to Miranda's introductions.

"I know who sent us here," she said cheerily, a bright smile on her face.

Goblins did not smile. Ever. They were warriors. Death and blood gave them pleasure. It fed their honor.

"Once I started to search, I saw the touches. It was impossible not too. The same signature has filled this cavern time and time again," Miranda continued. Her grin widened. "The hand of the Blighted God has touched us."

**A/N: Sorry for the long wait. Thanks for all the interest and all the reviews. If you like it, then review it. If you hate it, then flame it. Either way, tell me what you think.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: I own nothing in the Harry Potter Universe.**

**A/N: A few of you have asked questions that I feel need to be answered sooner than I had intended to reveal them. First of all, the quotes in earlier chapters still apply. I will continue them in later chapters. They serve a purpose that will be explained in later chapters. Secondly, many of you asked why I introduced religion in this. A great many books introduce religion, especially fantasy novels. The fiction is entitled **_**By the Grace of God. **_**That should have clued a few people in. Thirdly, some people asked why Harry will not have a sex slave. They point out that he is not a moral person in the first place. It is simple. There are some lines he will not cross. He will kill to serve a purpose, but he will not subjugate others to fulfill his own perverse desires. He is not a good person; he is not a decent person; but he is not a rapist.**

**Now, I have decided on the relationship aspect of the fic. He will have more than one partner. It might not be at the same time; it might happen in sequential order, but he will have at least two. This will NOT be a harem. I do not enjoy writing harems because they get very complicated. Still the idea of polygamy is not a foreign concept in fantasy. **

**That being said, thank you for reading this. Thank you for the reviews. Thank you for following this. Everything you write in response is appreciated. Unfortunately, the readership has fallen quite a bit, and I am wondering if people are still interested more than the small few who have said so. I will try to continue this, but I need to know if it is worth it. If it is not, then tell me. I don't want to waste your time or anyone else's.**

**Chapter Eleven**

Luna Lovegood opened her eyes into a world she knew better than most but prayed everyday to forget.

Life.

Unlike Harry Potter or Orin Throathammer, it did not take her a moment to realize where she was. Things never took her long. She always understood. Right away. Like now. That is how things worked for her. It is how they have always worked, whether in the past, present, or the future. Though, Luna could not always be sure which of three tenses she should speak in. Time was more of a suggestion than a rule.

Her bedroom opened up before her. It spun in a myriad of pastel colors that made her eyes dance and her mind quiver. Sunlight spun rays of warmth through thick panes of slightly hazy glass and light pink curtains. Bits of dust danced through the rays, rising and falling, tumbling and twisting with breezes drafting about the house. Wind chimes rustled from the ceiling above her head.

She sat on a massive four-poster bed that fit well against the far wall of her large room. It faced the door, though that door could not be seen due to the several folds of silky white curtains that hung from the bed's canopy. The curtains, except for the ones near the window, were closed for some reason. Strange, midafternoon meant that her curtains were usually open. A particularly odd event, even for someone who used to be twenty years old and was suddenly ten again.

Not the first time, though, was it?

Luna sighed. She had never had an easy life. It always had a very frustrating way of throwing her curveballs. Luckily, she knew better than to assume it was a coincidence. In fact, her very nature spelled out why such things happened. After all, such things always happened to people like her, if people could really be used to describe those of her particular disposition. This specific event, however, could not be entirely blamed on her nature. No, that honor fell to Harry Potter.

The boy she loved more than anything else in life.

Harry Potter, of course, did not know that Luna loved him. He had most likely never even heard of Luna Lovegood. If he had, chances were that what he had heard had poisoned his opinion of her with terms like crazy or insane.

Luna really hated being called either of those words. She might be a bit eccentric, but someone calling her crazy did so out of ignorance, and hate drawn from ignorance bothered her almost more than any other kind of hate. It meant that the individual wielding such a word did not care enough to understand or try to understand. It meant that they were more comfortable in their hate than in the truth. She dearly hoped Harry Potter did not find hate more comfortable.

Most of the wizarding world did. Most humans did.

"Luna, are you OK?"

The voice might have startled anyone else, but again, she was not anyone else. Things that should bother her did not. Things that should not bother her, more often than not, did bother her. In this instance, the voice only served to remind her – or inform her, depending on one's perspective – that another person sat in the room.

Luna's gaze fell on the vivid red hair that flagged the girl in her room as nothing but a Weasley. That particular shade of red had haunted her nightmares for more than nine years, ever since Ginny Weasley had taken a leading role in picking on her, ever since the night the petite red head had first written in the diary that contained Tom Riddle's soul.

Luna allowed a smile to grace her features rather than the normal absent, confused look that masked her true feelings so often. This Ginny wasn't the Ginny that died to give birth to the shade of Lord Voldemort. Not yet. Last time, Harry hadn't been there to save her. The warmth in Luna's smile grew.

"I'm fine, Ginny," she said.

Ginny arched an eyebrow. "You kind of just went blank there. It scared me for a second."

Luna blinked. "Why would I scare you?" Her head rested to the side. "Am I a scary person?" she asked absently.

Ginny shook her head quickly and laughed. "No, Luna. You couldn't ever be scary, just weird. One moment we were talking, the next it looked as though you weren't even here, like your body was sitting there but your mind was elsewhere."

Luna shook her head. She hopped down from the bed, moving with the grace inherent to those like her. Her feet glided across the floor. To Ginny, it might look as though the blonde's walk lacked substance, more of a meander than any sort of normal pace, but such an opinion would only expose Ginny's eyes as belonging to someone not trained to recognize danger. To someone more capable, the exactness of her steps, the coordination of her feet, the timing that guided her pace, and the way her body positioned to match the fluidity of her gait painted the image of a predator.

Hunter. That's what they called her.

She stopped beside Ginny, sat down, and wrapped her arms around the redhead in a tight embrace. The girl's scent flooded her nose as she buried her face in tangles of ginger. Whispering, she said "You have no idea how good it is to see you."

Ginny tightened in surprise but eventually returned the hug. "Um, OK. It's good to see you, too, Luna."

Luna pulled back, her arms moving from around the girl until only her hands remained on Ginny's shoulders. A sad look crossed her, pity and regret filling every line on her pre-pubescent face. Duty. She had a duty.

"You must forgive me, Ginny," she said mournfully. "Perhaps in time you will."

Ginny looked confused. "Huh?" she asked.

Luna leaned in towards her friend. Her lips opened slightly; her eyes closed. Then, as if she had done it many times before, she touched Ginny's lips with hers. Taking advantage of the girl's shock, she pushed open her lips with her tongue. A wave of energy made her tremble. Ginny tried to pull away, but Luna tightened the grip she held on the redhead's shoulders.

It was too late now. Struggling served no purpose.

The power left Luna, traveling through her mouth and into Ginny's. It spread through the ginger, making her tense beneath Luna's hands. Her body went rigid and convulsed. Her eyes rolled back in their sockets. Saliva ran from the corners of her mouth. Finally, Luna let go.

Ginny fell back, her body tumbling into uncontrolled convulsions.

Luna waited two minutes until the convulsions stopped. She stood and walked back to the bed, crawling atop it. Her stomach turned and threatened to empty itself of its contents. She hated having to be this way, but what other choice did she have? She had seen what the girl would become. To allow such a thing to happen again would give rise to the greatest of monsters the dark had to offer.

Luna sighed, swallowed, and screamed as loud as she could. The high pitch of her yell traveled through the hereditary home of the Lovegoods. A tumbling of footsteps shook the staircase. People coming to help.

The Keeper of Time kept screaming and let the tears of regret and duty stream down her face.

* * *

Hermione Granger might never have been born a witch had certain things not fallen into place to ensure such a birth took place. She might never have been more concerned with books than friends had another set of things not been similarly affected. Of course, had yet another set of things not also been affected in what can only be considered either a very odd string of coincidences or a precise effort by overly concerned and meddlesome entities, she might never have met Harry James Potter.

No matter what the reason it happened, it still remained that it happened. Hermione Jane Granger, the woman who could have been a doctor, astronaut, or Prime Minister, was born a witch. She grew up with the desire to read and learn, not to play and socialize. She did not remain in her seclusion when boarding the Hogwarts Express; she took a chance and met two young wizards, one with red hair and one with black.

She did not know that years later she might die having forsaken the boy with black hair. Of course, that was no longer the timeline she traveled. It might have been one where she defeated a Dark Lord beside the black haired boy and married the red haired boy. Again, that was no longer a choice. This timeline dictated that she wait outside the door to the Hospital Wing, tears streaming down her face. This timeline dictated that she did not eat or sleep except by that door, and only then in the small increments she could manage while stifled by her worry.

And so it was that Hermione Granger followed her fate, knowing that the black haired boy who had been the first to ever show her warmth waited on the other side of the thick Hospital Wing door, the door she had been forbidden to enter.

"Harry," she whispered to herself, grief making her mind twist and plunge. "Are you OK, Harry?"

No one could hear her, especially him, so there really was no reason to ask it. Logically, the words served no purpose. Despite that, she couldn't help but say them. Over and over.

Hermione sat against the stone wall, the cold, hard surface rough against her back. Harry's cloak draped over her shoulders did not keep in any warmth. It wasn't meant to. The coat she wore beneath it did that; though, it did not keep her from shivering. Harry's cloak did something more valuable than keep her warm. It made her invisible. It kept her hidden from the professors that might have made her move, might have forced her to leave Harry.

Classes had finished, most being canceled in celebration of Harry's victory over Voldemort, a fact well known by most the school despite that it should have been very secret. The professors were not actively looking for her, but her friend, Ron, had been by once or twice. A stray comment from Professor McGonagall to Madam Pomfrey asking if the healer had seen her tipped her that the professors were also looking.

Again, the brilliance of Hermione Granger triumphed. She had taken Harry's cloak, fearing that one of the professors might confiscate it when they searched the third floor corridor after finding them. Beneath it, she had found a clear path to Harry, only to be barred by wards that kept her out of the Hospital Wing whether she wore the cloak or not. The last sight she had of her friend had been his beaten body lying helplessly on a hospital bed and Dumbledore whispering urgently that he was slipping away.

Now, she knew nothing.

Then everything changed. Her entire world flipped upside down because of one action.

The door to the Hospital Wing open and out stepped Harry Potter. He walked right by her and down the empty corridor.

She swallowed, waited until he was out of hearing range, and followed. She would always follow.

* * *

The process to test one's blood for inheritances was not complicated, but the goblins kept it extremely secret. Had they allowed knowledge of the process to leak, Harry doubted they could keep wizards from taking over what made up a good chunk of their business and left the Ministry of Magic in their debt. If the wizards could not establish their blood appropriately, the entire wizarding hierarchy would tumble.

The goblin started by taking a sample of Harry's blood. Most healers used magic to draw the blood. Thorntooth, the goblin testing his blood, did not believe in exhausting so much effort to ensure the method he used caused Harry as little discomfort as possible. Without really caring what the human wizard thought of the matter, he took a silver dagger, one purified in the blood of a unicorn, and dragged it across the wizard's palm, causing Harry to emit a satisfying flinch.

Thorntooth did not try to hide his satisfied smile. If the weakling wizard wanted to be foolish enough to face judgment then he deserved a little pain. The boy was shirking the law of his people, no matter how corrupt that people. He dishonored his race simply for money. That disgusted the goblin.

Goblins praised those who remained loyal in the face of self-gain. They honored the ones who sacrificed their own desires for the good of their people. This little boy, a supposed hero who had earned his title for doing nothing, wished to turn his back on those who had given him fame and notice when he did not deserve it.

Thorntooth slashed the boy's hand again for no other reason than he wanted to. The wizard would never know the difference. This time, no flinch followed the dagger's edge. That only made Thorntooth scowl.

The blood dripped freely from the cut. Crimson spilled from flesh and into a stone basin the size of a large platter sitting on a table beneath Harry's hand. The blood pooled, the amount appearing larger than what it actually was because of a silvery liquid appearing in the basin and mixing with the blood.

"You may stop the bleeding," Thorntooth said a moment later, maybe a breath later than necessary. No sense in rushing the wizard to a more comfortable position.

Harry did not go for his wand. He tore a strip of fabric from his cloak and wrapped it around his hand, stemming the flow.

Thorntooth almost felt a tinge of respect for the wizard not falling back on magic so quickly then he considered Harry's age and wrinkled his nose. The child probably did not know how to used a healing spell. A dishonorable AND weak wizard. Even more humiliating. Serving such a wizard brought some of the boy's shame on him and his clan.

Shoving away his disgust, he returned his thoughts to the duty he had to perform. The High Lords expected Gringotts goblins to act in a certain way, and he would not fail his greater kin because of a human. His eyes dropped down to the bowl, and he adopted a mask of neutrality. That mask didn't last long.

* * *

Harry sucked in a breath as the knife cut into his flesh and immediately regretted it. Great. Now he looked weak in front of one of the goblins, and one of the lesser goblins even!

He gritted his teeth and took the second slash motionlessly. He could handle anything the little creature decided to put him through. In a few minutes it would all be worth it. The pain would mean nothing after the blood told his story. No goblin would treat him the same again.

The blood revealing his inheritance would not be enough to enamor him to the goblin nation. It would force them to recognize him as the heir to the last Lord Merlin, but it did not mean he rose to their throne. While humans would have no choice but to recognize his claim, the goblins would not act until he came into his full power and used the strength granted by his birthright. Once that happened and the Moridunum Beacon burned once more, the goblin armies would flock to him.

In the meantime, he had scores to settle. He watched the blood mix with the silvery liquid and counted the people who would face his wrath.

Harbinger indeed.

* * *

Thorntooth gasped. Mist swept up from the basin in a wide flourish and danced through the air. An invisible hand wrote words that only he and the boy wizard could see. The first few were expected.

_Heir to the House of Potter, the Earl of Wilmington_

_Heir to the House of Peverell, the Earl of Surrey_

The last of the two surprised him a bit, but it made sense. The rest did not.

_Heir to the House of Emrys, the Lord Merlin-apparrent, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, King of the Franks, the Right Duke of Normandy, First Lord of the Moridunum, Prince of Corinth _

Thorntooth looked up at Harry Potter, his goblin eyes wide. He did the one thing he could do to save any of his honor.

* * *

Harry Potter smiled as the goblin bowed and whispered, "Your Royal Highness."

**A/N: Should I continue? Yes or no? All other comments are appreciated.**


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: I own nothing in the Harry Potter Universe.**

**A/N: Thank you all for the many reviews. It means a lot to know that so many people are interested in what I write. The fact that you care enough to say something shows that this is worth it. I encourage all of you to continue to review. As soon as I have time, I will reply to every review.**

**Question: Should Hermione know about Luna, or should Harry's approaching love affair be a secret kept from her?**

**Chapter Twelve**

Several ideas ran through Professor Minerva McGonagall's head as she inspected the frail, pale face of her favorite student. None of the ideas, however, explained what could possess someone of Hermione Granger's intelligence to spend the night huddled beside a house and exposed to the elements. It didn't make sense. For the past year, she had observed Hermione to be the most level headed of all her Gryfindors, a trait not often exhibited in the House traditionally known for its members' courage and bold eagerness.

The girl in question shivered on the hospital bed, her tiny frame wracked by exhaustion and dehydration. McGonagall frowned and shook her head.

"I just don't understand it, Poppy."

The matron gave McGonagall a sad smile. "Minerva, you've been doing this longer than I have. You know what children are like. They act on whatever fancies them at the time." She shot a spare glance at the empty bed beside Hermione's, the one that should have housed a student with black hair and telltale green eyes. "I am sure Miss Granger's activities are directly related to Mr. Potter's mysterious disappearance. Have you any word on where the boy got off to?"

McGonagall shook her head. She did not need to be reminded of that particular problem. Miss Granger's condition was giving her enough consternation. Adding Potter to that only made matters worse. Still, she could not easily forget the fact that one of her students was missing while another had been found off grounds.

The professor rubbed her temples gingerly, the skin of her face barely moving thanks to the tight frown she wore. She sighed and closed her eyes, pushing back the headache she felt coming.

A soft knock sounded from the door.

McGonagall did not look up. She didn't need to. Madam Pomfrey did not make to open the door, either. It opened with a slight push from the man on the other side.

He stood in the frame, his blue star-covered wizard's hat bent at an angle so that his height did not get caught on the doorframe. McGonagall opened her eyes and tore her gaze from Hermione to meet the sparkling blue eyes of her mentor and friend.

"Good evening, Professor McGonagall, Madam Pomfrey."

McGonagall smiled. Even in the strangest and most worrisome of circumstances, the Headmaster always seemed to remain calm and collected. Even now he was willing to extend every courtesy. She nodded in greeting, unable to bring herself to match his cheeriness despite how much she respected it.

"So you found her outside of the grounds? In the village?" Albus Dumbledore asked, peering over his half-moon spectacles at the girl lying on the bed.

McGonagall shook her head. "No, Andy found her. Apparently she was covered partially by an invisibility cloak. At some point it had fallen off her head."

"She is sleeping?" he asked.

"No. She's unconscious. That's how Andy said he found her. She hasn't woken up, yet," Madam Pomfrey answered. "He's quite put out. Most of the students he finds are trying to run away, and apparently, Mr. Potter did just that last night."

Dumbledore merely raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

The concern in his voice could not have been faker. McGonagall wasn't surprised. Dumbledore always seemed to know everything.

The transfiguration professor rolled her eyes. "How long have you known?"

Dumbledore shrugged, his long grey beard and hair shifting with his body. "Since shortly after it happened."

"Albus Dumbledore!" Madam Pomfrey shrieked, interrupting. "Did you know this child was out in the elements all night?! If not for the fact that the last Spring cold has come and gone, Miss Granger might have died!"

Dumbledore raised his hands defensively and took an involuntary step back. "I assure you that I did not know Miss Granger had followed Mr. Potter," he added quickly. "Mr. Potter's cloak has certain unique qualities that would have hid her from even me had I not been standing very close to her."

Madam Pomfrey's angry scowl changed to an accusatory glare. Clearly, it took all the self-restraint she could manage not to curse the Headmaster then and there.

Dumbledore, however, seemed unfazed. He kept up his pleasant smile despite the heat of the matron's anger. "How bad off is she?" Notably, he did not step forward again.

The man wasn't stupid.

McGonagall didn't give Madam Pomfrey the chance to reply, too afraid that the woman might do something regrettable. "When Andy found her, she barely had a pulse. There are signs that she hasn't eaten in days, at least since the events with the Stone. It is probable that she has slept very little."

"Have you had a chance to question any of her friends? Mr. Weasley, perhaps?"

"Mr. Weasley claims that he has not seen her since they first tried visiting Harry. He has gone to St. Mungo's with his family to check up on the condition of his younger sister. Upon inspection, it seems that very few people spend much time with Hermione, so none of her housemates noticed her disappearance. Because of classes, only I had been looking for Miss Granger before today," McGonagall said.

At this, Dumbledore's exterior cracked. His smile faltered and faded to a frown. "No one noticed for three days?"

McGonagall shook her head. "Not even Mr. Weasley. Without Harry around, he has been spending quite a bit of time with Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan. He did not appear concerned with Miss Granger."

The Headmaster's reaction to the news about Weasley caught her off guard. Instead of maintaining his speculative concern, he looked genuinely distraught. He turned and made for the door, whispering, "This isn't right," beneath his breath.

"Albus?" McGonagall called, her voice following him as he headed towards the door.

He responded with a dismissive wave and disappeared into the corridor on the other side of the door. McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey exchanged a glance. The healer didn't look angry anymore. She looked just as shocked as McGonagall felt.

In the pit of her stomach, something she had not felt in almost eleven years pushed pass reason and logic. It took her a moment to realize what it was. Only seeing the great Albus Dumbledore shaken could garner such a reaction out of her.

Dread. Something bad was coming.

* * *

Dumbledore left the Hospital Wing and stepped into the chilly, dark corridors of Hogwarts Castle. Somehow, the cold dug beneath his robes to touch his bones. He shivered. Old age had its disadvantages.

Things were progressing faster than he anticipated. Harry should not be having such an influence over other people until he came into his power. The fact that Granger had gone into the night – escaping shelter from the elements – to follow Harry painted a daunting picture. The Boy-who-lived had to be stopped.

"_Do not forget my command…"_

The voice struck his mind with the force of sledgehammer banging against concrete. He stumbled, catching hold of a suit of honor to stay upright. Nausea bundled a knot in his stomach. Vomit threatened to explode from his mouth.

The disorientation did not last long. It didn't have to, only long enough to get the point across. Slowly, he pushed himself to stand straight, blinked away the pain, and swallowed the bile. The last echoes of the voice rang in his head.

The Almighty. No other being held power of that level. Even Albus Dumbledore, the man who was once a god, cowered at the command of the Almighty. His cowardice before the more powerful deity disgusted him.

But the Almighty did not plan clearly in Dumbledore's case. He might not have the power he once had, but Dumbledore was still manipulative. He knew how to play the game better than most. Now would be no exception. The Almighty had forgotten to take into account one thing, the rule that bound even the supreme being. No god could interfere with a human's choices. Mortals possessed free will.

Mortal.

And so it was that Dumbledore had many plans. He had little doubt that Harry would try to ascend to the throne, even if he did not understand how the boy would do it. Fortunately, Dumbledore had many powerful friends amongst the government, a testament to how corrupt humans could be. With the right words and maybe a bit of cash, Harry Potter would not see the throne until Dumbledore gave him leave. What's more, Dumbledore could use his influence to assure that the young heir had to attend Hogwarts in order to receive "proper" training in how to be a wizard. In fact, the aristocracy would not accept a king in any other fashion.

Dumbledore smiled and continued down the hallway, the divine command completely forgotten. He did not see the black figure that followed him in the shadows or the hand that rested on the hilt of a fiery sword that did not glow.

* * *

St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries held the scent of death and pain more than almost any other place Luna had ever visited. It hid the smell behind disinfectant and the buzz of busy healers and orderlies, but it did not cover it. Everyone felt it. They might have interpreted it as something different, but it was there. Only, Luna saw it for what it was. She gave it a name.

Hopeless.

The word left a bitter taste in her mouth, even if she had not verbalized it. Such was the nature of terrible things. They stuck with a person even if the only credence that person gave to it was a thought, no more recognition than he or she might give to an ant on the floor.

She sat in a waiting room. Like the other rooms in the Hospital, the walls were painted white. Square columns were spaced evenly apart to support the ceiling. They were white as well. The only bit of color in the room appeared in the twenty three grey chairs arranged in a square that faced inward so that all the people waiting had to stare at the depressed and worried faces of the loved ones of other patients, faces that only increased their own worry.

Luna tapped the floor with her foot impatiently. She had already been there four hours, and no one had told her or the others anything.

She looked around the room at the sea of red hair. Ginny's mother and father had been bodily escorted out of the ward, explaining that their presence only made the girl's condition worse and the healer's job more difficult. Molly, of course, tried to fight them every step of the way, but eventually, Mr. Weasley saw logic and calmed down his wife with a steady hand on her shoulder. The Weasley matriarch had visibly sagged beneath her husband's touch. Now, she rested against his shoulder, tears streaming from her closed eyes.

The other Weasleys weren't much better. The two oldest Weasleys, Bill and Charlie, sat on either side of their parents, their faces cold and emotionaless, but the hand that each laid on the arm or shoulder of a parent showed their concern. Ron seemed oblivious. Percy had chosen to stay a Hogwarts, citing that he had duties as a prefect to uphold. Fred and George sat off to themselves. Normally, the pair engaged in pranks no matter the situation, but now, they sat in silence, occasionally sharing a look with one another that only twins could decipher. They gave each other comfort simply by being there, a thing that Luna longed for. No one ever gave her comfort. Things like her did not deserve such a courteous.

Luna's father, Xenophilius Lovegood, sat beside her. He held her hand, offering his daughter something, though she could not describe the term. It definitely wasn't comfort. The man had the best intentions, or so it seemed, but he had no idea how to comfort. Distance and obscurity kept him sheltered from pain, especially since his wife, Luna's mother, had passed away.

Luna did not want to hold he father's hand. It made her skin crawl to touch him so. The world wanted to see Xenophilius as a simple, naïve man, but Luna knew the truth. She saw the controlling bastard beneath the shell he portrayed. Despite that, she did not let go. Certain pretenses had to be maintained for as long as possible.

Xenophilius had responded to her cries. He had come into the room to find her curled into a ball on her bed, tears wetting her cheeks, and screams coming from her mouth between gasps for air. It had taken several charms to sedate her. When he arrived, Ginny was barely breathing. The girl had been in no danger of dying, but Xenophilius had not known that. He called St. Mungo's immediately and met the Weasleys at the hospital just as Luna had planned.

"Daddy," she said in a voice slightly more than a whisper. She widened her eyes into the portrait of innocence as she looked up at her father, "I need to go to the bathroom."

"Of course, Luna, dear," he said with a sad smile; though, a tint of suspicion darkened his eyes. "Hurry back. The healers should be out any minute."

"I will, daddy." She smiled, hopped down from her seat, and skipped off down the hallway.

She went a few yards, passed the bathroom, and rounded a corner before dropping the skip. Another door to the ward sat at the end of the hallway. She headed towards it.

A panel sat on the wall beside the door. Normally, a staff member touched the panel with his or her wand and the door opened once the panel verified the magical signature of the staff member. Luna did not possess a wand, nor was she a staff member. She did not need either.

As she approached the door, she held out her hands and pulled her fingers into fists. Wood and metal wrenched and groaned. Sparks exploded in a whir from the panel. The door heaved, buckled, straightened, and finally, opened.

Luna gasped at the energy leaving her body. She leaned against the wall, trying to steady herself as the room spun around her. The death smell grew more potent, digging through her shields and assaulting her mentally and physically. She pushed away the aroma, fighting against the element that attracted it to her. She did not have time to play reaper today.

After a few seconds of breathing deeply, she picked herself up and brought her thoughts together. With a shake of her head to clear away the haze, she headed through the door.

On the other side, the corridor stretched on and on. The ward was magically enhanced to be larger than it appeared. Luna had read somewhere that the one intensive care ward could hold two thousand patients. It had been increased to such size after the Great War when Grindewald's forces had terrorized much of Europe. The number of patients to be treated at that time exceeded what many of the hospitals in Europe could hold, especially considering that few were left standing. St. Mungo's rose to the challenge, employing the best and ensuring there were plenty of beds. At one time, the homeless and displaced were purposefully throwing themselves in the line of danger just so they and their children had a place to go to escape the bitter cold and starvation that swept Europe.

Luna extended her senses and hunted down her magical signature. The taint of her power would still be clinging to Ginny. After a moment, she found it and latched on. Carefully and quietly, she headed towards the girl's room. She made it ten yards before a hand grasped her on the shoulder, threw open a closet door, and tossed her inside.

The figure followed her inside and shut the door behind him. She pulled up her power, ready to strike out with deadly force when he hit her hard on the mouth, throwing her to the ground and making her head ring. Suddenly, his hands grasped the collar of her shirt. He yanked her to her feet. Only then did she come close enough to see the face of her angry father.

"What do you think you are playing at?" he asked, his voice deadly.

Luna remembered this part of Xenophilius well. It had been this man who trapped her in her room when she accepted the job in the Time Room at the Ministry. He beat her nightly, trying to force her to resign. When she would not, he forced himself on her, stealing his little girl's virginity and unknowingly releasing the bonds that held her power in control.

Then, times had been different. In that time, he had been feeding her potions mixed with her food and drink for years, potions that dampened her power and made her susceptible to his will. The side effects of the potions earned her the name of "Looney."

Things would not go the same way as before. Now, she knew her heritage, knew who she was. The potions were not in her blood stream to force her inaction. They did not keep her from ascending to her rightful place.

"I knew you would turn out like your mother, you little bitch. You did this. I could feel the power the second I walked into the room, and now, you are trying to finish the job. I should have put you down the second she died. She couldn't have protected you then," he spat. Saliva sprinkled Luna's face. 'Well, she's not here now, either."

That was the last straw. She would take no more. Summoning what powers she could, she balled up the energy and shoved it out at the man she once called father. No more. Never again.

The force hit Xenophilius. It did not throw him, but it spread through his limbs, sending tendrils of agonizing torture through his body and to every extremity. He tried to howl and call for help, but Luna did not allow him to speak. She made him suffer. He released her collar and fell to his knees, twitching uncontrollably. His eyes bulged. Blood and fluid leaked from his nose, then his ears. The corners of his mouth frothed with foam. Urine's acrid aroma tainted the corner of her senses.

Xenophilius lost control of his body and fell to her feet, his body still twitching as the last of the pain left him. Luna smiled, holding back her fatigue. She had to show no weakness to the man, else he try to exploit it.

She released her hold.

"You have no idea how much like my mother I am, daddy. In fact, you might say I am my mother." Her smile twisted into something ugly and deadly. She knelt down beside the man and whispered in his ear. "You might say that I am the curse that will follow you to death. When you beg me for it, I will not show mercy. I will withhold even that escape from you in repayment for everything you have done and have yet to do. Your debt to me and my mother will never be settled."

She stepped over her father's prone form and left the closet, leaving behind his moans. She felt no mercy. The man deserved everything he got. Everything.

Ginny's room was much like any other room in the ward. It, like the rest of the rooms, held no color. White paint covered every surface. A white curtain surrounded her bed. Luna sluggishly made her way over to it and pulled back the curtain.

She had used most of her ability on disciplining her father. The spell had given him more pain than any Cruciatus Curse could have, even if it were cast by someone as powerful as Voldemort. She knew pain better than that monster. Once upon a time, some even said she had invented it; though, that time had long since passed.

Luna had little energy left in her, but it would be enough to finish the ritual with Ginny. She reached the bed and pulled back the covers. Thankfully, the healers were not in the room when she arrived. That would have made this more difficult. Beneath the covers, Ginny only wore the hospital gown. It left most of her legs uncovered. Perfect. Luna's hands grasped her ankles.

She closed her eyes and whispered soft words from a language dead so long that archeologists did not know it had ever existed. A warm pulse went from her hands and up Ginny's body to the girl's head. It settled there. Luna stepped back, breathing slowly to keep her calm, and said in a commanding voice, "Wake."

For a second, nothing happened. Then, as if she had been merely sleeping, the redhead opened her eyes. She blinked twice and looked at Luna. Her eyes widened, and it appeared as though she was trying to fight something. She lost the battle and her eyes returned to their normal size.

"Hello, Ginny," Luna said, her face once again masked by a serene smile.

Ginny stared. She swallowed. Then, in a soft voice that held no hint of weakness, she said, "Hello… Mistress."

One thought ran through Luna's mind.

_Mine._

* * *

The pale, blonde wizard adjusted his robes and tried not to be overly annoyed with the waiter serving him tea. It was not the waiter's fault that he was here. It was his. His fingers flexed anyway, desperately itching to draw the wand secured around his forearm and curse the poor man.

"Your tea, Lord Malfoy," the waiter said before hurrying off.

Malfoy smelled the man's fear. That took a little of the edge off. It was good to know that people still feared him after all these years. Service to Voldemort gave him some power, but more than anything, it gave him influence over the weak minded. It gave his reputation the dark tint that accompanied him wherever he went and intimidated those he interacted with more effect than his money ever could. In the wizarding world, a word from Lord Malfoy could make or break another without money even exchanging hands. Voldemort made it all possible.

A certain fear always came over him when he thought about his old master. The maniacal genius had taken over much of magical Britain with a small force barely equal in numbers to the Auror Corps. The Dark Lord had known how to make people afraid, and he had used that fear to grow terror, terror of him and his deatheaters. That fear gripped the deatheaters like Malfoy more than it did the populace at large. While normal wizards and witches merely had to succumb to the Dark Lord's will to escape the pain he offered, the deatheaters were constantly plagued by it. Voldemort kept them in line through the same fear that brought down wizarding society. That thought made Lucius Malfoy tremble.

He breathed deeply and cleared his head. He could not afford thoughts like that now. The letter in his pocket had brought him to this small, out of the way restaurant off the side of Knockturn Alley. The place itself was not bad. It might have even been one of the better restaurants for magicals had it not been located in Knockturn Alley. Perhaps he could do something about that. A Malfoy always kept his eyes open for the newest business venture. His family stayed wealthy – extremely wealthy – for that reason.

The door that led to the outside opened. Malfoy felt a frost come over him despite the warm June sun that made for a pleasant day in early summer. Temperature had nothing to do with the frost. It had to do with the wizard that walked through the door.

He was just a boy. A simple, malleable boy that gave Lucius Malfoy pause. Perhaps it was the all black clothing he wore, or maybe the frightening intensity his green eyes exploded with. Whatever the cause, Lucius suddenly felt very nervous.

The boy crossed the room without waiting on the hostess to seat him. He stopped at Lucius's table, pulled out a chair, and took a seat, crossing his legs casually. The look he gave Lucius was anything but casual. It was calculating, and in a voice that matched that calculation, he spoke.

"Good morning, Lord Malfoy."

Malfoy bowed his head and said the words that would possibly seal the fate of his family for centuries to come. In one phrase, he broke all other oaths and made a new one. "Good morning, Your Royal Highness."

**A/N: Thank you for reading. Please take time to leave a review; they mean a lot. A simple yes or no would even suffice. On another note, I want to offer you all a chance to contribute to the story. If you have something that you want to see in the story, let me know and I will consider it. All ideas are worth reviewing. If your idea is chosen, I will give you credit in the story. **

**Until we meet again!**


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns the entire HP universe. Everything else is mine. I make no money off this.**

**A/N: Thank you all for reading! A special thanks to those of you that have reviewed. There are still a few I have not gotten to, mostly from chapter twelve, but I am slowly replying to every review received. I would love to hear your thoughts, your opinions, your ideas, and your criticisms, be they good or bad. I will respond unless you ask me not to. Thanks again for reading and please remember to review!**

**By the Grace of God**

**Chapter Thirteen**

She stood by a window, a large, full window that opened to a balcony. The wind blew through an opening between the panes. She smelled the ocean, the salty warmth of water and waves crashing on the beach concentrated into a soothing aroma that caressed her sense of smell.

Hermione smiled. The wind felt good against her skin. The white silk robe hung open, exposing the sides of her ample breasts and the valley between them. The breeze tickled the skin of her torso. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the sensation. Unconsciously, her hand drifted down her stomach, tracing lines in her skin with her fingernails, until it reached the top of a sheer white thong.

A soft knock struck the door to her room. No. To their room: hers and Harry's.

She turned around, not bothering to pull the robe closed. She was twenty years old. A grown woman did not hide her body from her lover, and only one person would be knocking at the door at this hour.

"Come in, Harry," she called, her voice almost singing, full of the happiness she felt. Her heart wanted to burst at that moment. The anticipation built inside her. The doorknob turned. Her breath caught in her throat. The door slowly opened. Her hands trembled.

Then he entered. Striding through the door, shirtless and showing off the hard, tan muscles that normally would be hidden by a shirt, Harry came to her, the perfect picture of a strong, grown man. The perfect picture of her Harry.

He took her in his arms, slipping his hands beneath her robes and encircling her waist with his strong arms. Neither said a word. Their lips touched, softly at first. Then she opened hers ever so slightly. He responded in kind. The passion grew in her, the hungry, aching feeling. Unquenchable desire. She wanted him. She needed him. The kiss deepened, spurred by their lusts.

Her robe fell from her shoulders. His lips moved to her jaw and traced the line to her ear, then her neck. She inhaled sharply as his lips touched her collarbone. Her hands ran down his stomach, feeling the defined abs as they went. They reached his pants. Just jeans. She undid the button as his kisses continued. The zipper next. She thrust her chest forward, arching her back as her body tingled in response to his lips.

"Harry…" she moaned.

The kisses grew faster. His lips delved lower, deeper down her body, his tongue following the outline of her breasts then flicking over hardened nipple. His mouth turned hotter, more urgent. She moaned again. The heat increased… unnaturally. It began to get uncomfortable. After a moment, it burned.

She jerked away, clutching a hand to her breast. She pulled it back and looked down. A burn mark in the shape of his lips stood out in sharp contrast to the creamy flesh around it. Her head snapped up.

Harry watched her, a smile on his face, a leering, mischievous smile that struck her as odd. No, that wasn't right. He wasn't supposed to look at her that way. His eyes should be full of concern and love. Instead they were empty, empty and completely black. No green. No white. Just black.

Pure and endless black.

"Harry?" she asked, her voice no longer musical. It shook.

Harry held his hands out at his side. Bright orange flames ignited on the tip of his fingers. The flames covered his hands and crawled up his arms. Hermione wanted to scream, but the terror was too great. The fire covered him, moving to his chest then his torso, and finally his legs.

"No," she whispered hoarsely, backing up. Her back hit the full window.

The flames covered his head, blocking out the face she loved. He still did not scream. Through the fire she saw him throw back his head and laugh a maddening, terrible cackle that chilled her despite the heat filling the room.

Hermione grabbed the ends of her hair and closed her eyes. She desperately shook her head, trying to wake up, trying to escape the nightmare.

"Don't fret Hermione," said a soothing, feminine voice.

She didn't want to open her eyes. She didn't want to look her. It was a lie. A trick. Black magic. Her head moved anyway. Her eyelids opened on their own, no matter how hard she tried to keep them closed.

Harry still stood in the room, his body aflame. Only now, a woman with dirty blonde hair stood in front of him, his arms wrapped around her nude body. His hands moved to cup her breasts. She gasped and parted her lips as he ran her nipples between his fiery fingers. Her silvery grey eyes taunted Hermione, daring her to come nearer.

"He's mine Hermione," the woman said, her voice just as perfect as her flawless body. "He's always been mine. The Harry you thought you knew doesn't exist. He is only MINE!"

She shouted the last word. The power behind it hit her like a wall and shoved her hard into the pane of glass. The hinges gave way and the windows swung open. She tripped, falling backwards to the balcony floor. She crawled away as best she could, flattening herself against the balcony railing, too terrified to notice she once again looked like a twelve year old girl and not the grown woman she had dreamed herself as. She wore her Hogwarts uniform.

"You're just a girl, Hermione. Leave him to me. You can't possibly understand." The woman's eyes glazed over. She opened her mouth to say more, but only a moan of ecstasy escaped as Harry's hand found the curve between her legs and his fiery fingers slipped inside.

"MINE!" she screamed, her body shuddering in the throes of an orgasm. "MINE!"

Hermione closed her eyes, shut off her hearing, and gave into the black emptiness of oblivion.

* * *

"NO!"

Professor McGonagall jerked awake to the sounds of a girl screaming. It took her a moment to realize that she sat in an oversized chair beside a bed in the Hospital Wing.

Madam Pomfrey burst through the door that led to the resident healer's private quarters. In her sleepy daze, McGonagall couldn't seem to relate the woman's obvious worry to anything in particular.

Wait, why was she in the Hospital Wing?

"HARRY!"

McGonagall's head turned to the bed beside her. Hermione Granger sat straight up in the bed, a look of pure terror on her face, tears streaking down her cheeks. Finally, it all came back to her. Her protective instincts took over.

"Poppy, what's happening?" she asked, jumping from her chair. She did not panic. She had seen things like this too many times to panic. After forty years of educating young wizards and witches, she knew a thing or two about what odd things children did when they believed they were in love.

Madam Pomfrey shook her head. She had a wand in one hand and her other hand on Hermione's shoulder. The color signatures of diagnostic spells sparkled at the end of the wand as the healer ran it over the young Gryffindor's body. "I don't know," she admitted, her face worried. Her voice sounded confused.

McGonagall's eyes widened. Madam Pomfrey never said she didn't know. She always knew. There wasn't a better healer in all of Britain. St. Mungo's used up countless owls every year sending her offers of employment, each more lucrative than the last as her fame as a healer grew. McGonagall had seen the woman bring a countless number of students back from the brink of death, and it was only through the healer's expertise that so many of the Order of the Phoenix lived to see the end of the war.

But now, the healer shook her head, the color of her cheeks ghostly pale instead of their normal rosy. "It's like she is under a spell, only I can't find the trace. Magic definitely has hold of her somehow, but there should be a trace that leads to the caster or the item holding the curse in place. None exist. It's not that it's hidden. It's just not here. Nothing."

McGonagall had her Mastery in transfiguration, a subject that required extensive knowledge of spellweaves and how they worked. Strings of energy made up every spell. The words wizards and witches spoke tied these strings together and created a concentrated bubble of magic infused with the caster's will. If done correctly – through the proper pronunciations and wand motions – the spellweave took the shape of whatever magic the caster wished to use and accomplished the intended task. It always left a signature, a left over of the caster's will that traced back to the caster. No spell could exist without the caster's will. There had to be a trace.

"But that's not possible," McGonagall stammered.

"Don't you think I know that?" the healer snapped back. "I've been trying to figure it out while you stand there like a knot on a log. Get me a bloody calming draught, woman."

People did not talk that way to Minerva McGonagall, the stern Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizard, wizened Head of Gryffindor House, and powerful Transfiguration Mistress. They simply did not. Apparently, however, Madam Poppy Pomfrey had no qualms about doing so. It was also apparent that speaking to Minerva McGonagall in such a way had a strange effect on the woman, because the Transfiguration Mistress did not argue. She did just as she was told. In a matter of moments, she had made it to the shelves and back, carrying a bottle of calming draught. She handed to Madam Pomfrey without a word.

"_Wait," _McGonagall thought, _"what just happened?"_

Madam Pomfrey did not take the time to assuage the woman's consternation. She uncorked the bottle and did her best to get most of the draught into Hermione's mouth between screams. It only took a heartbeat for the potion to take effect and the girl to visibly relax. Hermione's shoulders sagged. She slumped against the headboard and fell into quiet unconsciousness.

"My God," Madam Pomfrey whispered. "I've never seen anything like it."

McGonagall stared pensively at the unconscious girl, going over in her mind again and again what she would tell the Grangers. They would want their daughter home with them, no doubt to send her to a muggle doctor. She couldn't let that happen. Somehow, she had to talk them out of it, to convince them that the best place for her little girl was in the capable hands of the Hogwarts Healer.

The professor shook her head. "I don't know, Poppy, but I have a feeling it has something to do with our other mysterious student."

Madam Pomfrey raised an eyebrow. "Harry Potter?"

McGonagall nodded and made for the door. "Indeed. And I must inform the Headmaster about it immediately."

"Good luck," Pomfrey told her.

She nodded and turned out the door. A second later, she stuck her head back in the frame, her trademark stern glare written across it. "And don't think we won't be discussing that little remark you made a moment ago."

The only response she got from the healer came with a snort, accompanied by the sound of the door to the woman's private quarters slamming shut.

No one _ever _treated _her _that way. She stomped off towards the owlery, thinking how it was a right fitting time for Albus Dumbledore to be busy with the bloody Wizengamot.

* * *

Lucius Malfoy waited in silence. Delegates and proxies filled the open chamber of the High Wizengamot, the official name of the Wizengamot when it convened as Magical Britain's legislative body. Representatives were present for fifty of the fifty-eight voting seats. The other eight houses either lay dormant, with no apparent heir, or belonged to members who could no longer attend the meeting.

The Houses of the four founders, mostly honorary seats, sat at the high theater that overlooked the rest of the body. On the left rested the chairs of Godric Gryffindor and Rowena Ravenclaw. To the right rested the chairs of Salazar Slytherin and Helga Hufflepuff. All four chairs supported carvings etched into their wood bases. The carvings depicted the status of each House as being one of the great families, the only four families in wizarding Britain to preside over a duchy and retain the title of duke. Every member of the Wizengamot paid homage to the chairs in order to honor the memory of the great families that did so much to frame the modern wizarding world.

Lucius Malfoy did his duty. He stepped up to the base of the theater, kissed the four fingers of his right hand, and laid his hand at the foot of each chair. He might be proud. He might be descended from a family that could trace its lineage back to French Royalty, but even he, the great Lucius Malfoy, knew when to bow.

And it was that thought that brought the pale wizard's eyes to gaze upon the chair that sat in the center of the theater on a raised dais.

Unlike the others, grand fir had not been the wood used to carve the chair. Legend told that tree used to make the High Chair of the Crown only existed in one place in all of the British Isles. When Merlin vanished – most historians agree that his death cannot be definitively proven – he took all of the ancient oaks with him, leaving only one specimen, a massive oak that gave one seed. Years later, in 1772, the seed was planted at Audley End, Essex. Since that day, no other oak of such grandeur as the Audley End oak has ever been grown.

Lucius stared up at the stiff-back chair and couldn't help but make the comparison between the tree and the boy who would soon occupy it. There had been many attempts to get the seed of House Emrys to grow in another line, but none had every succeeded. Like the graphs taken from the Audley End oak, all products of other seeds died, leaving entire family lines heirless. It is for that reason alone that he believed in his pureblood status. So many families had been lost because they tried to mix with a blood unlike their own. So many families had died because of impure blood.

He would not let that happen to the House of Malfoy.

No one paid homage to the High Chair of the Crown anymore, but Lucius kissed the four fingers of his right hand anyway. Discretely, he laid them at the base of the dais and whispered, "Long live the King."

And long live House Malfoy.

* * *

Voices filled with mirth, anger, and every emotion in between echoed in the main gallery of the High Wizengamot. Delegates and proxies alike filed in and took their seats, each flanked by a team of aides and retainers. Most of them didn't need the extra staff as they really didn't do anything beyond show up for a random vote, but on a day like today, one of the few occasions throughout the year that the High Wizengamot met, no one could be seen without an entourage lest their status in the hierarchy suffer.

Dumbledore smiled at the group from his desk at the open end of the chamber, directly in front of the theater that contained the four chairs of the founders' houses and the High Chair of the Crown. The desk rose thirteen feet from the ground, a height at which he could easily see the chairs that filled the hall. He liked to look at other humans from this perspective. He enjoyed the squabbles, the politics, and the betrayal that took place within these chambers. Humans belonged in such roles. Though they might, at times, rise above their differences and work together to achieve something great, it never lasted long. Eventually, time took its toll on even the greatest societies. Fate had her way, and humans tore themselves apart.

Greece died. Rome burned. Britain dwindled. America was being crippled by an internal disease of the mind, poisoned from the inside.

The only constant that remained was humanity, the cold and base instinct of personal preservation and greed. When times got lean, humans didn't flock to help one another. They looked out for themselves. Ah, how he loved humanity.

Humans were so unlike other races. The goblins could be horrible, true, but only humans killed their own out of envy. The goblins did not covet. They believed in honor and strength. To them, one had to earn his or her place to a position of grandeur. Elves were the same way, though they earned their positions through learning and wisdom. They cared little about war and bloodshed. Vampires were the same. Leave the fighting to the goblins and orcs and they would be happy to live their lives in quiet seclusion, only coming out when necessary. The dwarves hid deep underground, far away from civilization, perhaps further away than even goblins. No one knew for sure. Only the fae claimed to have seen a dwarf in the past few millennia, and Dumbledore did NOT want to think about the fae at all.

He shook his head, casting away thoughts of the other races. No, they didn't matter anymore. Only humans mattered, and that's how he preferred it. Sometimes he wondered if the Almighty had even meant to curse him. Sure, he might not be a god any longer, but he was still more powerful than any human, still capable of ruling over them. He was content…

Except for one thing.

Harry Potter.

All his plans relied on the boy's ignorance, but Michael messed that up. First, he arranged for the boy to go to Azkaban where all of the blocks Dumbledore worked so hard to put into place were destroyed. Then, when Dumbledore might have fixed everything by going back in time, Michael arranged for the boy to return as well.

Twice the Archangel had thwarted him. Twice fate hade twisted Harry Potter around her finger.

No more. That ended today. By the end of the High Wizengamot session, Albus Dumbledore would have absolute authority over Harry Potter, with the law backing him.

He smiled and raised his gavel. He struck with it twice. Each time, a resounding thud echoed through the chamber. By the second strike, the delegates and their proxies were quietly taking their seats. Yes, today would be a good day.

All his plans were finally coming together.

* * *

"On this day, the 17th of June, in the year of our Lord 1992, the High Wizengamot of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is hereby order by standing mandate from the Crown, as carried out by the Ministry of Magic, to convene in order to hear and debate laws old and new for the good of the magical citizens of this United Kingdom. Presiding is the Right Honorable Albus Dumbledore, Earl of Warwick, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot."

Harry watched as the Sergeant-at-Arms stepped away from the center of the gallery and took his place by the double doors. Despite the information fed to him by the Accord, he had never actually been in a Wizengamot session when the body acted as a legislative body. His trial had been in front of the judicial body of the Wizengamot, a smaller body comprised of members elected from the full High Wizengamot. That had been the only formal proceeding he had ever seen. All in all, he was a bit intimidated.

Most of the faces he did not recognize. Between the delegates, the proxies, the aides, the ministry officials, the reporters, the aurors, and the public watching from the viewing gallery above, Harry counted about four hundred people. That meant soon eight hundred eyes would be watching him. A sobering thought.

He sat three rows up from the chamber floor in the seats reserved for the delegation from the House of Malfoy. Directly across from him, the empty seat of House Potter stood out like a sore thumb amidst the crowded room. Four rows up from it and slightly to the right, his other hereditary seat sat empty, the House of Peverell. In a few moments he would claim both seats as his own, legitimizing himself as a member of the Wizaengamot, and if what Malfoy had told him was true, emancipating him as an adult wizard at the age of eleven.

He almost laughed at that. Only in a society as backwards as that of the wizarding world could an eleven year old be recognized as a full adult with all the responsibilities and freedoms it brought. The fact that it was even possible made no sense. Then again, since joining the wizarding world, Harry had found that very little made sense. Most of the archaic civilization's laws, and he could verify this through the Accord, were hundreds of years old and created at a time where pureblood wizards ruled as an aristocracy more powerful than the Ministry. Women had no place, muggleborns had no place, and any magical species besides full-blooded wizard deserved to be impaled on a pike somewhere or hanging from a noose. The bigotry of the society he represented sickened him.

Soon, that would all change. Before the day ended, he would claim his third hereditary seat… the hard, stiff-back chair that sat directly behind Dumbledore's desk.

Today, Britain would hail a new king, and a new era.

* * *

Luna sat beside her father in the House of Lovegood's block of chairs. Her father did his best not to even look at her. He even leaned away when she shifted in her seat. The smell of fear drenched him. It excited her. She wanted him to be afraid of her. Maybe then he would think twice before trying to hurt her again.

Yet, as Luna watched the opening of the High Wizengamot take place, she couldn't help but to feel a bit sad. Xenophilius Lovegood was the only father Luna Lovegood had ever known, whether she was the Luna of this present, the former present, or any other present. That part of her needed her father, needed the loving hand of a parent to support and guide her. But Luna Lovegood, no matter which, never got that; for, in every timeline she had seen, her mother was taken from her in a tragic accident and the cruelty of her father knew very few bounds.

She might have cried had she been anywhere else. But Luna knew she couldn't cry this day, not here. Too much relied on her being there and manipulating her father to do what she wanted. That much, she knew without a doubt. The fate of the entire wizarding world resided on the House of Lovegood.

The chamber stood silent, now. The Sergeant-at-Arms announced Dumbledore, and the grey haired wizard stood from his desk and stretched out his hands in welcoming.

"Today, my friends," began Dumbledore, "begins another day in which the burden of prosperity and freedom will be carried upon our shoulders. We meet not as enemies but as allies. We put aside feuds and quarrels to work together to achieve something for the greater good. Today, like other days when this body has met, will be a moment in a history that will be judged by wizards and witches for generations to come. It is with great humility that I beseech you to use well the judgment entrusted to you by the people of the United Kingdom."

A round of polite applause accompanied his statement. The Headmaster paused for dramatic effect. Luna forced herself not to roll her eyes.

Dumbledore held up one hand and pressed on. "That being said, I open the floor to old business."

The next two hours went by painstakingly slow. Delegates, most five times Luna's age, droned on and on about everything from taxes to muggle-proofing cauldrons. After the first twenty minutes she tuned everything out and used the time to expand her senses. She reached through the crowded room, sending tiny tendrils of magic to every box in search of her quarry.

No one noticed her prodding. It took someone exceptionally attuned to the weaves and flows of ambient magic to detect Luna's trace. Most of the time, her subtle touch didn't even disturb the natural flows. Instead, she utilized them to keep her presence hidden.

But when she came to the Malfoy box, something changed. She brushed against the aura of a person in the box who had a black cloak pulled of over his head. Not all that odd. Many of the delegates wore their cloaks up to hide their faces. It kept the public from being able to blame them for a vote that went wrong or for a particularly detrimental piece of legislation being passed. She might not have just moved on by this person, leisurely taking her time to briefly continue on touching every aura in the room, except she couldn't.

The person in the cloak seized her tendril of magic and held it. She had been sensed. Very few people were capable of doing that

_Harry._

She hadn't meant to send the thought through the magical tether, but it went anyway, her emotions betraying her.

_Who is this?_

The mental voice hit her head like a rockslide. It actually made her cry out, which earned her a look from her father and a few others. She muffled her outburst with the back of her hand, passing it off as a strange yawn. Everyone but her father looked away. They were used to the Lovegoods being a bit strange. She even heard a few snickers.

Luna's silvery grey eyes fell on the Malfoy box and stared at the hooded figure. She froze, unsure what to do. She tried to tug on the tendril and pull her magic back to her, but the hooded figure had a tight grasp on it.

_Who is this?_

Even when ready for it, Luna had trouble not crying out again. His presence burned like the sun. It was bigger than any presence she had ever felt! It had to be Harry.

_Luna Lovegood._

The figure did not answer immediately, but she did see him shift. Did he know who she was? That should not be possible at least for another three months. They were supposed to meet at Hogwarts, not now.

_Why do you feel so familiar?_

Luna could not reply. Only one thought took up her whole mind then, nothing else mattered. _He remembers._

* * *

Dumbledore cleared his throat and rapped his gavel once more. "The old business is concluded. Is there a motion to move to new business?"

Several delegates made the motion at once followed by several cries of "second."

"The motion stands. We will move on to new business." Finally. As soon as he took care of the formalities and got the nonsense out of the way, he could make his own proposal concerning Harry. "Does any delegate wish to bring new business to the floor?"

Lucius Malfoy rose. Several other delegates also made to rise but quickly sat back down. No one wanted to get on House Malfoy's bad side.

"_Of course," _Dumbledore thought_. _He nodded to Malfoy. "The chair recognizes the Right Honorable Lucius Malfoy, Earl of Wellington."

"Thank you, Lord Dumbledore, fellow delegates," Malfoy said in his oily voice.

Dumbledore felt a sharp throb behind his eyes. People like Malfoy always gave him headaches.

Mafloy continued, "I call the attention of this chamber to pressing new business. It has come to my attention that an heir to one of our eight non-sitting houses has come to light." He cleared his throat. "House Malfoy moves to recognize the Right Honorable Harry James Potter, Earl of Wilmington, as a full member of this body."

The Wizengamot erupted in a flurry of cries and shouting. Dumbledore shot straight up from his seat in surprise. He scanned the crowd trying to find his wayward student. He need not look far, because a black-cloaked figure rose from the Malfoy box and lowered his hood.

Shouts of "Harry Potter" filled the room.

It took Dumbledore a moment to gain his senses. His mind started doing flips. He'd been played; it was the only logical explanation. Somehow, Michael was playing him again!

"Ah, Lord Malfoy," Dumbledore said, clearing his throat and trying unsuccessfully to not stumble over his words. "As you know, Harry Potter is only eleven years old. He is not old enough to-"

"Point of order, Chief Warlock," came the voice of Lord Nott who was now standing, his own booth of seats only two over from Malfoy's. "The law has set a precedence for this. Lords as young as nine have risen to the Wizengamot."

Dumbledore cleared his throat again… for the lack of anything better to do. He was losing the argument, and it had only just begun! Nott and Malfoy had his hands tied. He wrinkled his brow and rubbed his temples.

"Gentlemen," he started, "surely you understand that Lord Potter, while a future member of this body, is too young. He was raised by muggles. He has no understanding of our procedures."

Malfoy raised an eyebrow. "Strange that you should say that, Chief Warlock. As it so happens, Lord Potter knew enough about our procedures that he approached me to breach the subject on his behalf, which, might I add, follows the proper procedures you point out that he knows nothing about."

Dumbledore tried to argue but Nott cut him off. "I move to invest the Right Honorable Harry Potter, Lord of Wilmington, into his due seat as a voting member of this body and Head of House Potter."

"Second!" shouted nearly half the chamber, most of them practically cheering the name of the famous savoir of the wizarding world, Harry Potter.

The old man hung his head, knowing that he had been beaten. He struck the anvil with his gavel twice, calling the hall to order. It took a solid two minutes before they listened, but in the end, everyone but Harry had taken their seats. Dumbledore did his best not to meet the boy's eyes.

Regretting the words before he even said them, Dumbledore proclaimed, "The High Wizengamot will now vote to invest the Right Honorable Harry Potter, Earl of Wilmington, as a member of this body to take the seat of his family, House Potter. This requires a two-thirds majority vote. All in favor?"

Forty-seven of fifty delegates or proxies raised their hands. The viewing gallery above erupted into cheers.

Dumbledore sighed and stood. "The chair hereby recognizes the Right Honorable Harry Potter, Earl of Wilmington, as an emancipated adult and Head of House Potter. Lord Potter, you may assume your place among your peers."

The Wizengamot chamber almost shook with the cheers. The delegates all parted, making way for Harry to assume his seat in the Potter booth. The boy didn't move. Instead he fixed Dumbledore with a look and said in a loud voice that somehow reached above the noise made by the voting delegates.

"Point of Order, Chief Warlock."

Everyone heard Harry. Like a wave, sudden hushed quiet fell over the Wizengamot. Every eye turned to look at the newest member. Every ear listened intently. Somehow, they all knew without a doubt that today would be recorded in history books for years to come, and they all wanted to remember every detail as clearly as possible.

"I believe, Lord Dumbledore, that it is proper to read from the Book of Letters Patent in order to establish the legitimacy of a new member. That is protocol, sir."

Dumbledore's eyes widened. No. The boy couldn't know! It wasn't possible! There was no way he knew enough about procedure to know what the Book of Letters Patent would reveal. How much had that accursed Archangel told him? Everything would be ruined!

"Yes, my boy, but I believe everyone is aware of who you are," Dumbledore replied with a fake smile, trying his best to avoid having to open that thrice-damned book, the book that recorded every rise to the nobility as soon as a Gringotts blood test confirmed it.

Harry shook his head stubbornly despite the cries of ascent from the other delegates. They didn't want to waste any time on reading from a book. They all knew what it was going to say. But Harry wasn't giving up that easy. "Lord Dumbledore, the law must be followed."

"Point of Order, Chief Warlock," Malfoy said, rising to stand beside Harry. "The law is the law. You must read from the book."

Again, Dumbledore realized his battle had come to an end; the victors were different than planned. He reached down and opened the book that sat in front of him. Besides, what were the chances that Harry had already gone through a blood test? All the delegates turned anxiously towards him, ready to get the ceremony over with.

In a clear voice, Dumbledore fulfilled his duties and read: "On this day, the 17th day of June, in the year of our Lord 1992, the High Wizengamot recognizes from the Book of Letters Patent the Head of House Potter to be the Right Honorable Harry James Potter, Earl of Wilmington."

More claps and cheers. But Dumbledore wasn't done. His voice cut through the celebration. "On this day, the 17th day of June, in the year of our Lord 1992, the High Wizengamot recognizes from the Book of Letters Patent the Head of House Peverell to be the Right Honorable Harry James Potter, Earl of Surrey."

Silence. Utter silence. Two Houses. Harry Potter controlled two Houses of the High Wizengamot.

The old man paled when he saw the next line. The boy had played him, not Michael, he realized.

Dumbledore took a deep breath. "On this day, the 17th of June, in the year of our Lord 1992, the High Wizengamot recognizes from the Book of Letters Patent the Head of House Emrys, the Royal House of the United Kingdom, to be His Royal Highness Harry Potter, the Lord Merlin-apparent, Prince of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Prince of the Franks, the Right Duke of Normandy, First Lord of the Moridunum, Prince of Corinth."

Pandemonium broke out in the High Wizengamot chambers and the gallery above it.

* * *

Miranda bowed as she entered Orian's private chambers without permission, and offense that could have quite possibly ended with her falling headless to the floor. Orian only waved his hand. He was used to her breaking protocol when she thought it necessary. The two armed goblins by the door relaxed, but they didn't take their hands off the hilts of their swords. Killing a human would make their day.

"Dreadlord," she began without prompt. "He has claimed the High Chair of the Crown. The Wizengamot recognizes him as we speak."

Orian Throathammer growled, producing a smooth, rolling reflection of his emotions. He stood from the small table at which he sat. The two goblins at the door snapped to attention. Miranda did not even shift a foot. She stared straight at him, unblinking, unafraid.

"You know what you must do," Orian told her.

She nodded.

"Then prepare him well, Miranda. The blood of the old ones rest upon your shoulders."

**A/N: Tell me what you think. Seriously, a review isn't hard. Hell, just a yes or a no would work. Thanks for reading!**


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns the entire Harry Potter Universe.**

**A/N: So I wrote this while heavily medicated. I was in a wreck and hurt my neck. The haze of the medication may have affected my ability to edit well, so give me a little slack in that area. As far as this chapter is concerned, I don't like it. Unfortunately, it was necessary in order to establish the back-story behind Dumbledore's situation and his relationship with Harry. A lot of you have been requesting more information. I hope this satisfies that desire.**

**As always, thank you all for your reviews. They have, of course, inspired me. You might have noticed that I have updated quite a bit this week. It is because of your consistent reviews. Please continue to leave the feedback, whether good or bad. It helps motivate me. THANK YOU!**

**By the Grace of God**

**Chapter 14**

Shouting. A lot of shouting.

Luna tried her best to tune out the shouts of the delegates around her. Most were on their feet. Dumbledore pounded the gavel over and over to no effect. She pushed it all aside and focused on the boy who stood beside Lucius Malfoy. His green eyes sparkled brightly as the light in the chamber hit them. His mop of messy black hair refused any sort of order and stood out oddly at different spots.

Then everything froze. The delegates in the room stopped. The sound stopped. No one moved. No one spoke. They literally ceased to move, frozen like statues. Some still had their hands in the air. Some had looks of outrage on their faces, their mouths stuck wide open in the middle of a scream or yell. One particular delegate had his head thrown back in laughter while a fellow delegate patted him on the back, his hand suspended inches from the laughing man's back.

Time had stopped.

Luna stepped out of the Lovegood box and weaved between the immobile lords and ladies. She took several steps at a time as she rushed down the steps, crossed the chamber floor, and sped up the other side of the chamber leading to the Malfoy box. She stopped beside Harry.

The Boy-who-lived stood just as still as any of the other people. His lips were slightly curved into that of a small smile, but the tightness in his jaw and the strain on his neck muscles showed the stress he felt, proving the smile to be a forced one. His eyes still sparkled, even in the frozen space.

Luna's magic only barely held the chamber. It would only last for a short time. The act of stopping motion itself did not take much out of her, but the longer she held the room still, the greater the drain became. Had she been at her full strength, she could have held the entire Ministry indefinitely, but she was still weak. Her current body wasn't used to controlling the weave of time.

Still, the Keeper of Time would never be powerless. Beings such as her held a certain innate ability that separated them from mortals. Her mother held such power; now, she held it too. No one could take that little bit from her, because when it came down to it, Luna Lovegood was not human. Not even remotely.

She reached out a hand and touched the shoulder of the only other person in the room who might somehow understand her, one of the few in the entire world who could relate to the loneliness she felt.

As her hand touched the fabric of his cloaked shoulder, she pushed, forcing her will into the area around him. It took a moment, but only a moment. Then, Harry Potter blinked, turned his head to take in the room, and looked calmly at Luna.

* * *

"You are the one who spoke to me." Harry said. It was a statement. He didn't need the petite girl to confirm it. He felt the signature in her aura. It felt comfortingly familiar; though, he did not know why.

Luna nodded anyway, even if the statement was not a question.

"What are you?" Harry asked. His mind barely registered that no one else but the two of them moved or spoke. Luna took up all his attention. He needed to get to the bottom of the mystery the girl presented. He had to figure out why he felt such a connection with someone he had never heard of until a few minutes ago. Such ties left him open to influence.

"Like you," Luna told him. She took one of Harry's hands in hers, flipped it over to where the palm faced the ceiling, and traced a line from the base of his index finger to the top of his wrist. "We are the same. See," she said, holding out her own palm.

Harry shook his head. He didn't see anything similar about their hands.

"That doesn't answer my question. I want to know how you did this," He waved his free hand in a gesture that swept the room. "A normal witch couldn't have done this."

Luna sighed. Her face turned sad. She reached up and traced his face, staring at something that Harry couldn't see. It was almost as if the girl was looking through him. He didn't try to stop her. The feeling of her cold fingers against his flushed face soothed him. Her cool skin made the rush of activity in the chamber seemed like a distant memory. A longing swelled in his chest. He wanted to gather her in his arms, to hold her, kiss her. Abruptly, he stepped out of her reach. He didn't need to have thoughts like that about such a girl, not one so young, even if she did appear to be anything but human.

Relationships were a luxury he did not have room for in his life.

The girl only fixed him with a stare even sadder than the look before it. Her silvery grey eyes held pity. "I thought you remembered," she whispered dejectedly.

Harry blinked and started to reply, but suddenly, she wasn't there. The delegates in the hall were moving and shouting again. Harry looked around quickly. The girl was nowhere to be seen.

_Luna Lovegood. _He would remember that name forever. He had a distinct feeling that she wasn't done with him.

Unfortunately for the strange girl. Harry Potter was done dancing to other people's tunes. The witch would have to try a lot harder to throw him off his game.

"Lucius," he said, tapping the older wizard on the shoulder. "Does the name Lovegood mean anything to you?"

Lucius inclined his head slightly, barely giving a nod to acknowledge the family. "Yes. They hold a seat on the Wizengamot." He pointed towards the Lovegood box.

Harry's gaze shifted to the box. It was empty.

The Boy-who-lived blinked and wondered if the past few minutes had just been a fantasy. No one could just appear then disappear. Time did not stop and go based on the whims of a person's fancy. Then again, no one could travel through time either. Yet, here he stood. Dumbledore, too. The impossible never did mean very much to Harry Potter.

"Your Royal Highness," Lucius said, getting Harry's attention again.

"Yes?"

"We are ready to move with the second part of the plan."

Harry smiled, pushing away any thoughts of Luna Lovegood. Time for the checkmate.

"Summon the Minister."

* * *

Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge loved his job. He sat behind his big, mahogany desk in his comfortable, leather chair. What care did he have? The Ministry ran itself. All he had to do was make a few appearances, flash a couple of smiles, and let the press laud him for doing such a great job. As long as he kept the purebloods happy, the campaign money rolled in. Term after term they elected him for no other reason than the fact he had the most money.

Fudge smiled as he puffed contentedly on his pipe. His feet were propped up on the corner of his desk. The polish on the tip of his shoes glowed under the flickering light of the chandelier. No, Cornelius Fudge had no cares to bother him. The aides took care of all the problems. His job was great.

A soft knock sounded on the door to his office. He barely gave it second thought as he sighed and bid the knocker to come in. He didn't bother to lower his feet or the pipe. The staff knew what he did. If they wanted to keep their jobs, they went about their business without comment. The few stupid enough to ask about the Minister's habits found themselves relegated to the mailroom or the sanitation crew. Neither job appealed to a respectable pureblood.

A squat, toad-faced woman entered the office, her bright pink cardigan and skirt ensemble causing a throb to start behind his eyes. Her perfume floated across the room and assaulted his nostrils, the smell only increasing his discomfort. Fudge sighed, put down his pipe, and lowered his feet. He swiveled around in his chair to face the last woman in the world he wanted to see.

He had to fight down the revolt led primarily by his stomach.

"Yes, Dolores?" he asked. Suddenly, he wasn't as happy with his job. Dolores Umbridge, his Senior Undersecretary, tended to have that effect on him, even if she was one of his staunchest supporters.

"Hem, hem," the woman started, clearing her throat with a trademark scrape that made Fudge's skin crawl. She gave him a broad, smile that made her flabby cheeks swell and look like folds of extra skin. Dead extra skin. "Minister," she said in a sugary, high-pitched voice, "there have been a few developments in the Wizengamot chambers. They are requesting your presence, sir."

Fudge raised an eyebrow. The Wizengamot never summoned the Minister of Magic. He might decide to take time out of his busy schedule to watch one of their proceedings on occasion, but they NEVER summoned him. He was the Minister of Magic!

The Minister picked up a black leather planner off the desk. He pretended to flip through it. "I suppose I can stop by a little later in the day. What's the issue? The new Muggleborn tax? They really should be grateful we even allow them to work in our world. There are quite a few decent purebloods who they are taking good jobs from."

Umbridge nodded with exuberance. The woman's prejudices were no secret. She fixed Fudge with another of her smiles. "Oh, I quite agree, Minister. I honestly believe that they should be outlawed all together."

That earned a genuine chuckle from Fudge. "Ah, Dolores, your dreams are always so extreme. You'd have our entire world burning just swat a few pests." He sighed and set down the planner, being quick to close it before Umbridge saw the blank pages. "Tell the Sergeant-at-Arms I will make an appearance after lunch," he told her as he inspected the carvings on the outside of his pipe.

Silence met his statement. He looked up from his pipe. "Is there something else, Dolores?"

The toad-faced woman paled, if that were possible giving her already stark complexion. She shifted her feet awkwardly and cleared her throat again. "Yes, um-" She hesitated.

"Spit it out, woman!" Fudge ordered testily.

"Well, Minister, it's just that the Wizengamot demands your presence, now, sir," she told him, pushing the words out as quickly as she could.

Fudge stared at her incredulously. "They demand my presence?" he asked, each word clipped with distinct bitterness. "I am the bloody Minister of Magic! They don't demand anything of me!"

Umbridge raised a finger to stop him. The hint of caution in her movements made it obvious she did not want to argue with the Minister. "Yes, sir. I understand that, but the thing is, they can summon you. The law gives them the right in the event that certain pieces of legislation are brought to the floor."

Regrettably, she had a point. The High Wizengamot could summon the Minister if they were locked in a stalemate, voting on a question of no confidence, discussing and issue of national defense, or investing a new member. The law required the Chief Warlock and the Minister of Magic, in the absence of a sovereign, to administer the oath of office together. Usually, things like that were planned ahead of time. More than likely, the delegates had somehow managed to lock themselves in a stalemate. That seemed like the most likely of choices.

Sighing, Fudge rose from his seat. The headache brought on by Umbridge increased, now pounding at his temples as well. "Fine," he said. "Let's get this over with."

"Of course, sir," Umbridge replied. She took a step forward. "Sir, there is one more thing."

Fudge rolled his eyes. "What?"

"The High Wizengamot has officially recognized an heir to House Emrys."

The Minister stopped. He let that last statement sink in. An heir to House Emrys meant one thing. "Who is it?"

Umbridge's face scrunched up as if a bitter taste had touched her tongue. "Harry Potter."

Fudge touched his chin with a finger. One of the most famous people in the wizarding world, a boy with a virtually unknown past, sat poised to be the first king in five centuries. The Minister might be lazy, but he was not stupid. The politician in him knew the path this incident would take. He also knew how to profit from it.

* * *

"Order!" Dumbledore cried over and over. He banged the gavel against the anvil again. No one listened. The aurors working security had their wands drawn and were looking at Dumbledore for guidance. He nodded at the Senior Auror.

The Senior Auror raised his wand, followed quickly by his subordinates. Silencing spells flowed from their wands, spreading through the chamber. Line after line of magic poured from the wands of the aurors until the weave of the silencing spells met. The spells mixed unnoticed over the chamber to form a web. As one, the aurors brought down their wands. The web fell across the shouting delegates, instantly silencing the entire body.

Dumbledore watched the precise motions and intricate weaving with fascination. Humans so often took for granted the innate ability they possessed to control magical flows. For other races, something as simple as a mass-silencing spell would not have been possible with runes and rituals. Humans, however, were capable of calling up incredible amounts of energy and weaving them together to achieve feats from something as simple as sweeping the floor to as complicated as instantly ending the life of another. While one end of the spectrum could be looked at as menial household chores, it stood to reason that such menial spells were stronger pieces of magics than the average elf or fae could match. While such a spell could not compare in sheer force, it more than outweighed the elf or fae's precision. Include in that fact that a witch or wizard could use several such spells simultaneously, it became obvious that humans had a startling advantage over the other magical races.

If for no other reason than that, humans were largely hated by the greater magical community. While a human could never compare in power to a three thousand year old vampire, that same human would be more than a match for a vampire twice his or her age. Only ignorance of their actual abilities kept humans from dominating the magical world. The other races preferred to keep humans ignorant.

For centuries, Dumbledore had facilitated that ignorance. In one form or the other, he had placed pressure in certain areas and used less subtle methods in other areas to ensure that humans had no idea that more than a few werewolves and vampires existed. Other than the occasional werewolf bite or money dealings with one of the lesser goblins, the humans of Britain were sucked into a bubble that both kept them safe and gave him absolute control. It wasn't until he assumed the name Albus Dumbledore that things began to unravel.

The Almighty stripped him of his divine powers almost a millennia ago. He spent the first three centuries wandering aimlessly through the world, trapped in the shell of a mortal, refusing to care what fate awaited him or how he might bring himself back to his former glory. He only wanted to die, but no matter how hard he tried, even death ran from him. It wasn't until he met a young man named Nicolas Flamel that Dumbledore began to see what potential existed in mortality.

Five times since meeting Flamel, Dumbledore had died and been reborn in another body. Five times he befriended Flamel, and each time he learned something new. When Dumbledore had combed through the man's intelligence and pulled out every shred of brilliance he could, he severed ties with the man.

Of course, that didn't last forever. Eventually Voldemort began to search for the fabled Philosopher's Stone. To keep the Dark Lord from rising again, Dumbledore, for the sixth time, rekindled his friendship with Flamel and convinced the old man to give him the stone.

Now, Nicolas Flamel lay dying in some cottage off the northern coast, alone and friendless. But he had served his purposed. He had given Dumbledore a new life, a new purpose. Without Flamel, Dumbledore would likely still be roaming the world in desperate search of release. Instead, he stood atop it and ruled his Britain with a precise hand.

Harry Potter, no matter what method he used, would not take that away from him. Before, Dumbledore truly had not wanted to see harm come to the boy. He wanted the boy to be healthy but subservient to him. He wanted a pawn that could be used to achieve his boldest of plans.

He wanted a path back to the godhood that had been taken from him.

The boy was not so easily manipulated. He could see that now. The years in Azkaban had turned the young wizard jaded. Instead of the subservient boy Dumbledore wanted, Harry Potter bunkered down against any force that Dumbledore threw. He waded through the annals of time without concern and made deals with the most conniving of humans. Harry Potter had thoroughly played him. All because an archangel refused to mind its business.

And yet, that was the real question of the whole matter. What did Michael have to gain from Harry Potter? Why was the archangel using the boy? Surely the Almighty had better, more willing servants. Something didn't make sense. A piece of the puzzle was missing, and it all centered on Michael's obsession with keeping him away from Harry Potter.

Dumbledore wasn't going to give up that easy.

The Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot tore his eyes from the intriguing beauty of the spell weave that descended over the hall. Delegates were beginning to figure out what had happened and were returning to their seats. Most looked angry. A sea of purple and red faces watched him accusingly. He pulled out his wand and waved. Instantly, the complicated spellweave dispersed.

"I take it that we can continue this in an orderly fashion," Dumbledore stated, the tone in his voice daring someone to challenge him. No one did. In a wave of the wand, Dumbledore ended hundreds of silencing spells all at once. Purebloods could be stubborn, even stupid, but they knew their limits.

When no one spoke again, Dumbledore continued. "We have reached a historic occasion that has not been before this High Wizengamot in almost five centuries. The last Prince of the Realm was Argois II who died in the year of our Lord 1565." Dumbledore favored the chamber with a smile. He had to act carefully. His next few words would tilt the precarious support of the wizarding world to either his or Harry's favor.

"For five hundred years, we have governed ourselves without a king. For five hundred years, we have made our own laws and protected our own lands without the blessing of the crown!" A few scattered applauses followed his words. Dumbledore's smile grew. "The question remains, do we bow to a king now? What action does this noble body take? Do we submit ourselves to an eleven year old boy or do we continue to govern ourselves." Murmured whispers echoed back at the aged wizard. He did not bother to call for order. He wanted them to whisper. He wanted them to discuss his words. The more they talked and thought for themselves, the more the light of Harry Potter dimmed.

His solution was not ideal. A king, properly molded, might be just the thing Dumbledore needed to solidify his control over Britain, but Harry Potter was not properly molded. The boy lacked malleable spirit. Rightful king or not, Dumbledore had no choice but to dispose of the boy.

"I call every member of this Wizengamot to question. I ask you what decision you will make and will it be the decision that ensures the continued prosperity of all of Britain? Speak now, brethren. Speak now and preserve the union you have worked so hard to protect!"

The last words of his speech drifted through the room like a ghost. No one made a motion to stand, not yet. He didn't expect them to. The delegates were mostly cut from the same cloth. They did not want to stand out on a limb by themselves lest that limb be cut down. Deals would be made over dinner. Money would be moved around. Votes would be promised. But in the end the results would be the same; the group of delegates would stand as one against Harry.

* * *

For a moment, even Lucius worried that their plan might not work. Dumbledore's speech struck several cords amongst the angry delegates. He saw that much on their faces. The old man had always been good at political maneuvering. Lucius remembered tales his father used to tell of Dumbledore thwarting the pureblood agenda on one issue while pushing it through on the next issue. It all depended on what way the old man wanted the wind to blow. When Dumbledore gave direction, it seemed that even the current of politics – as bloody and unpredictable as it was – followed without argument.

Fortunately, the boy he swore allegiance to had the foresight to see this. Lucius had no idea how the boy knew as much as he did, but for the past two days, he had surprised him more than once with archaic laws that the Wizengamot could not ignore. Laws that even Dumbledore could not ignore.

They had planned for Dumbledore to try and rally support against Harry, albeit not so openly, but it still worked in their advantage. In fact, it probably helped move things along very well if Harry used the right words to expose it.

A soft groan of an opening door called Lucius's attention. He turned, along with almost every other delegate, to the main doors of the chamber. The Sergeant-at-Arms stood in the opening blocking from view the person attempting to enter. Lucius did not need to guess who it was. After all, he had been the one to send for the Minister.

Sure enough, the Sergeant-at-Arms nodded, turned, and took several steps forward so aurors could open both doors. He cleared his throat and spoke in a booming voice that the entire hall could hear. "The Honorable Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic."

As was protocol, the chamber rose as one for the entrance of their chief of state and nominal head of government. They all knew exactly how much power the Minister held. It went about as deep as Lucius Malfoy's purse.

The Minister waved and smiled as he crossed the chamber floor. Several delegates shook his hand if for no other reason than to show the public in the viewing gallery above that they were important enough to know the Minister personally. More than one gave a small bow to the Minister who beamed in response to the praise.

Malfoy refrained from rolling his eyes at the display of pomp and circumstance. Malfoys, no matter what young Draco thought, did not show off. They carried their nobility with the subtle refinement that only the most proper of people managed. Few of the delegates shared such cultured and refined graces. Most were descendents from country nobles or hedge knight that had served the Ministry after the death of the king. Few delegates were actually members of the Wizengamot through royal decree.

Thus came into play the trump card.

Fudge reached the Chief Warlock's desk, walked to the side of it, shook hands with Dumbledore, and took a spot slight lower and to the left of the Chief Warlock's seat. He raised his hands and beckoned the chamber to be seated, a wide smile on his face the entire time. It was not until then that Fudge sought out Lucius.

The eldest Malfoy met the Minister's eyes and nodded. Casually, Lucius placed a hand on Harry's shoulder. The Minister's gaze moved to the boy. His eyes widened and his complexion paled slightly as he realized who stood beside Lucius and what it implied. The portly man swallowed, the bit of excess skin beneath his chin jiggling, and nodded.

The die was cast. No turning back now.

Ever the smooth and collected politician, Fudge's smile returned as quickly as it had left. "Friends!" he exclaimed cheerfully, not bothering to use any of the honorifics. "I have been told that we have come to a momentous occasion in our history! An Heir to the House of Emrys has been found in the person of Harry Potter, the Boy-who-lived!"

Dumbledore turned his head so fast that the bone might have snapped had it been anyone else. He reached out a hand, but found that it was too late. The Minister had already started speaking again.

"Let me be the first person to stand up in front of you all and publically proclaim my support for His Royal Highness. The Ministry of Magic, as required by law, intends to submit itself to the will of the King as should all who call themselves proper citizens of this United Kingdom!"

Lucius almost laughed as Dumbledore bowed his head.

"Chief Warlock," Fudge started, looking to Dumbledore, "I am ready to deliver the oath to the Heir of House Emrys so that our young prince may assume his rightful place as our king!"

The public amazed Lucius. People did not follow the person that sounded the best. They followed the person that told them what they wanted to hear. Dumbledore offered them the choice to stand up as rebels and reject the law, but Fudge gave them an easier road by openly supporting Harry. The delegates, who moments before were angry and shocked, cheered, all thoughts of dissension gone from their minds as if Dumbledore had never spoken.

Now was the time to strike. Lucius rose. He did not wait on Dumbledore to recognize him. He touched his wand to his throat and muttered, "_Sonorus._" In a voice amplified several times over, he said, "I move to officially recognize Harry Potter as the rightful King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland!"

Nott followed quickly behind him. "I second the motion and call for an immediate vote!"

Cheers of "vote now" exploded. The observers in the gallery started knocking on the magically strengthened glass.

Lucius stepped back and sat down, a smile on his face.

The Minister took the entire show in stride. He let the shouts go on, not relinquishing the floor for Dumbledore to take back over. Again, Harry had anticipated this. The Minister wanted nothing more than to be in the public limelight so long as that light was a public one. The second he saw Harry gaining favor, he would try and ride the positive public opinion as far as it would take him, not realizing that his own power diminished the more Harry's rose.

"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" Fudge called, completely ignoring the fact that there were a large number of female proxies among the group of shouting delegates. He held his hands up and laughed aloud. "I am just as excited as you are! Let us contain ourselves! His Royal Highness will think us a fickle bunch indeed if we rush so quick."

Several people laughed. Lucius smiled appreciatively at the irony of the man's words.

"He is good," Harry whispered, taking the seat by the Malfoy Head. "He has completely neutralized Dumbledore. The Headmaster can't say a word against Fudge without looking like an idiot."

Malfoy raised an eyebrow in amusement. "And to think, he did it all without even realizing that he was just a pawn."

Harry nodded but did not reply. Instead, he stared pensively at the Minister.

"Chief Warlock," Minister Fudge prompted, "I believe you have a vote on the table."

Dumbledore's face remained flat, showing no hint of emotion. The old man stood, moving as gracefully as any other dignitary in the room, putting some to shame. He raised the gavel and struck it twice. "The floor will come to order."

He said it in such a way that everyone listened. Dumbledore might be a manipulative bastard that many people secretly despised, but you couldn't deny the power he commanded. Many people had been brought to their knees because they tried to do exactly that. Ignoring Albus Dumbledore more often than not resulted in political suicide for the individual unfortunate enough to do it. Lucius was well aware of the fact he had painted a big target on his own head by supporting Harry Potter over Dumbledore. If even one part of their plan went wrong, he would suffer.

"A motion has been made to recognize Harry Potter as the rightful King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. All in favor?" Dumbledore asked.

Unanimously, fifty delegates raised their hands. The noise made by the public grew so loud that the aurors had to lay another blanket of silencers over the viewing gallery.

Dumbledore sighed. Suddenly, he looked much older than Lucius ever remembered seeing him. "The vote carries." He paused, no doubt taking a last minute to consider a way out of what he had no choice about doing. Finally, he said the words that would be recorded forever in history. "The High Wizengamot, acting in its function as legislative body of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, hereby recognizes Harry Potter as the legal sovereign of this government and its people. Henceforth, let Harry James Potter be recognized as His Majesty Harry, the Lord Merlin, by the Grace of God, King of the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, King of the Franks, Right Duke of Normandy, First Lord of the Moridunum, Prince of Corinth. Long Live the King."

* * *

Cries of "Long Live the King!" ushered Harry towards the theater where Dumbledore and Fudge waited before the chairs of the founders, the latter smiling wide despite the former's clear frown. He took the steps up to the theater slowly. His head swam. Everything felt surreal. Lights flashed from the gallery above. Someone must have informed the press.

As he reached the two men, both bowed. The Accord went into overdrive, funneling him information on old protocols. He bid them to rise then shook both men's hands. Once completed, one of the administrative assistants brought a gigantic, dusty tome to the edge of the theater and handed it to Dumbledore. The Headmaster opened the tome to the correct page, and the two older wizards led their young king in the oath that bound him to serve and protect the citizens of Britain while upholding the laws of the land.

"Your Majesty," they said together and bowed once again. Harry stepped around them to complete the rest of the much-abbreviated ceremony. He crossed the theater, walking between the chairs of the founding families. He stopped before the High Chair of the Crown, also called the Chair of the Rightful, and stared at. The Audley End oak looked rigid and sturdy. Gold and silver inlaid runes carved in the legs and arms glowed as he came closer, recognizing his presence. A light came off the chair and expanded until it stopped at the bottom of the dais, inches from where Harry stood. He took a deep breath, stepped up to the High Chair of the Crown, and took his seat.

Once again, the chamber exploded with cheers.

Harry, however, did not have time to celebrate. "Madame Bones," he said, his voice echoing through the chamber. The ancient spells laid on the chair amplified his voice, stretching the sound behind his words until they reached every ear in the room. "Summon the aurors, please."

Madame Amelia Bones, celebrated Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, gaped like a fish, unsure of what to do. A span of several breaths passed before her mind caught up with her body and she headed out of the chamber to follow her sovereigns command.

Harry did not move from the chair. He slid all the way back until he touched the rigid back of the chair. The metal and wood construct had not been built to be comfortable. It was supposed to remind the king of his duty to the land, encouraging the sovereign to never become complacent in his task.

"My Lords and Ladies," he began, saying the words exactly how he had practiced with Mafloy, "I am very much aware of the gargantuan task that I have taken upon myself today. My shoulders grow heavy with the burden of the crown that I will soon wear. You have recognized me as your sovereign, placed me on the throne of my forefathers, and bowed to me as monarch. The rest of my life, be it long or short, shall be spent honoring the faith you place in me.

"I fear, however, that I cannot complete this task alone. No man or woman, wizard or witch, could hope to lead such a people as ours without help. As such, I place my faith in the abilities of this august body to continue in its own appointed task of establishing laws and policies to protect and ensure the prosperity of our people. Government is not in place to condemn the least and raise the greatest. It is in place to protect each of these groups with fair and just laws.

"Unfortunately, there are times when even a government with the best of intentions is led into committing acts that violate the oaths they took, whether they realize it or not. Usually, this is because of a poison that has been allowed to harm the government from within. More often than not, it starts at the head of said government."

Harry turned his head and stared directly at Dumbledore. "For ten years, wizarding Britain told stories of Harry Potter and his defeat of the Dark Lord. My name became legend to be whispered to children at night. My story became a shield against the dark, a bright star in the night that frightened away the nightmares. For ten years, you all were told that Harry Potter was safe and cared for, hidden away and being prepared to enter into society. To this end, you were all misled."

Harry sighed and bowed his head dramatically. He paused for effect, allowing his words to sink in. "My lords and ladies, for ten years I lived my life in a cupboard beneath a staircase in the home of my muggle aunt and uncle, kept away like a house elf, made to serve and clean for people who would then spend their nights harassing and beating me."

He stood and walked to the edge of theater, facing Dumbledore, now, instead of the chamber. He opened his robe and cloak and unbuttoned the black shirt beneath them, exposing his chest and stomach. Red welts and scars stretched across his skin, standing out starkly against his pale complexion. The delegates gasped. A few cried out. One particularly scandalized woman screamed. A thud followed the scream. He did not look to see if she had passed out. Instead, he met Dumbledore's blue eyes. They did not sparkle. They glared. For the first time since meeting the man, Harry saw hatred.

What happened to the benevolent old grandfather who supposedly tried to protect him from Azkaban?

"They starved me. I stayed locked in the cupboard without food or water for days at a time with only an old bean can to relieve myself in. All along, no one checked on me, no one looked for me. The wizarding world left me to suffer."

He looked away from Dumbledore and faced the delegates. Their eyes were wide. Looks of horror and disgust masked every face. Many had tears on their cheeks. "I do not blame you," Harry told them. "I blame the man who placed me there despite knowing my heritage. I blame the man who watched over me, ignoring the abuse and telling the world that their king was safe. I blame the man who only a few minutes ago tried to convince you to forgo the law of the United Kingdom and reject your rightful king."

On cue, Madam Bones returned to the chamber with three contingents of aurors. Sixty aurors filed in, all confused but armed and ready nonetheless.

"Lords and ladies, I blame Albus Dumbledore and accuse him of treason to the Crown!"

Dumbledore was trapped. Wards thicker than the wards that protected Hogwarts kept him from leaving in any magical means. The aisles full of aurors and delegates kept him from physically running from the chamber. So the man did the only thing that he could do to try and save his good name. He pulled his wand on his accuser.

The accuser who happened to be the king.

"I will not stand for lies!" Dumbledore yelled, slashing his wand towards Harry. A bright red spell lashed out from the tip of the wand, but Harry was prepared.

Using reflexes born from years of running from Dudley and his gang, Harry spun out of the spell's path. Dumbledore followed quickly with another strike, but this time the old man wasn't fast enough. As soon as he turned his back on the delegates, a spell from Lucius Malfoy's wand crashed into the Headmaster, bringing the old man down to his knees and knocking the wand from his hands. Harry deftly caught the piece of wood.

"Aurors!" Harry cried. "Arrest Albus Dumbledore for treason and attempted murder of the sovereign!"

The aurors were on Dumbledore in a blink of an eye, along with several delegates. The rest of the hall stood in stunned silence, mouths hanging open. As the aurors restrained the struggling wizard, Harry closed in and whispered where only Dumbledore could hear him.

"I promise you this, old man. The rest of your life will be spent in the place you condemned me to. For every year I spent there because of your manipulation, you will spend ten. Even if I have to funnel my magic into your broken body, I will not let you die until you have known every bit of pain you caused me and beg for my forgiveness."

Dumbledore, all dignity forgotten, spat at Harry's feet. "This is not over with. Your enemies are still out there, boy. You need me."

Harry shook his head and fixed Dumbledore with a look of disgust. To the aurors, he said, "Take the traitor away."

* * *

Luna entered the Lovegood ancestral home before her father. The man followed closely behind, too intimidated by the girl to say anything. She did not fear him, not anymore. Maybe, once, she needed to, but his hands were tied. She effectively had him by the balls. Her power, while not matured, was more than enough to keep him in line.

So she walked through the house without worry, throwing off her cloak and letting it fall to the floor. She never thought to look over her shoulder. She never thought that her confidence might be misplaced.

She never saw the pottery lamp coming at her until it shattered on her head. Even then, the black of unconsciousness quickly replaced the few pieces she did see.

**A/N: Ok, this was a long drawn out chapter that I wrote while severely medicated. I know it might have been pretty boring, but there was a lot of information in there that had to be covered, such as a bit of Dumbledore's back story. The public of the wizarding world has always been portrayed as being fickle. I wanted to convey that in this chapter. I hope I succeeded. I promise the action will be back in the next chapter. Please give me your opinion. PLEASE REVIEW!**

**Thanks.**


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns everything. I make no money off this.**

**A/N: My friends, again the wait has been long, and I apologize. The real world often gives us little time to pursue our joys. I also ask your apologies for not replying to your reviews from the last chapter. I swear that i will reply to any reviews from here on out. Please read and REVIEW. It helps me keep this story alive.**

**Chapter 15**

A king should have a castle. No one argued with that. Unfortunately, only one castle existed in Wizarding Britain, and that castle currently contained a school. So it was that the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland took up residence in a small compartment of rooms within the Ministry of Magic normally reserved for visiting dignitaries. It was less than ideal, and according to the many advisors that the king had gained overnight, it was not befitting of his royal station. The king, who had lived the past ten years confined to a dark, damp prison cell, did not notice. In fact, he was rather comfortable.

Currently, said king stood in an ornately decorated room designed to look older than it actually was. According to Lucius Malfoy, the rooms were barely ten years old, having been built immediately following the defeat of Lord Voldemort as an attempt to put at ease ambassadors visiting magical Britain for the first time in years. A particularly elaborate and costly piece of what Harry could only describe as art, stood near the center of the room: a mirror of carved oval glass and framed with sapphire encrusted gold. The king stood in front of it.

Harry stared into the mirror. His reflection stared back at him, looking no different that it had a day before. Now, however, he wore the burdens of a country on his shoulders. Strange that he did not look different. One would think that power and responsibility would change a person, but did he feel different?

_No._

What should have been a feeling of absolute victory was instead a feeling on incompleteness. His job was not done. Something was missing. The battle had only just begun. There existed another platform to which he must rise if his vision of the future was to be complete. As he stared into the mirror, he saw it. A boy stood in the reflective glass, and that boy stood upon the world.

His world.

It was the only way. The darkness that threatened to consume him, the pain of his years in Azkaban, the creeping shadows that poisoned the shallow corners of existence, they all came from the same place. Disorder. Chaos. Evil.

Was he evil? Had he not burned Diagon Alley and led a people to commit genocide through Britain? Did he not attempt to destroy the wizarding world for his vengeance? Yes to all those. Every last sin attached to his name was true. He had done them all. But did that make him evil?

_Yes. I am the destroyer of worlds._

As he said it, he knew it to be true. Harry Potter brought death in his wake. War brimmed on the horizon, but that war did not come from a dark wizard trying to take over the world. That war came from the ambitions of a king, the harbinger of humanities destruction. He had a purpose.

An archangel told him so.

Harry turned from the mirror, and as he did it, he turned his back on the image he saw in his mind. No. He would not be a pawn. Michael told him there were great plans for him. He was to be the hand of God Almighty.

But Harry did not want that job. He was free. No one could chain him again, even an archangel. He had his freedom, and his future was his. The world would fall at his hand, and he would rebuild it as a utopia. Nothing stood in his way but personal issues. In time, he those, too, would be conquered. At his side, his hands tightened into fist. He squeezed so hard that the knuckles turned white. He closed his eyes and stretched out with his magic, delving deep within himself to the face of the massive wall that blocked him from embracing his true power. With all his might, he threw himself against the wall. It did not budge.

The room spun around Harry. He reached out, steadying himself against the wall. In reality, he had not moved, but the mental trauma of trying to crack through the barrier blocking his magic more than made up for the lack of physical exertion. He felt drained. Empty.

"Your Majesty, are you alright?"

It took a moment before Harry could pinpoint the source of the voice. Eventually, however, the room did slow down. His bearings returned, and he noticed the shadow of a man standing in the far corner. When Harry did not answer immediately, the man stepped into the light.

"Sir?" the man asked in a voice full of genuine concern.

Harry shook his head and raised a hand. "I will be alright." He cleared his voice and straightened his back, an odd sight for a twelve year old, even if that twelve year old happened to be king of the wizarding world. "A slight headache." Some hand of God Almighty he made.

The man visibly relaxed. Harry did his best to hold back an eye roll. The large black wizard took Harry's safety seriously, not that Harry was complaining, but having bodyguards, especially auror bodyguards, reminded him a lot of Azkaban. Since ascending to the throne, every eye watched him, some watching for him to make a mistake, some watching for his safety, and some watching him as one watches an idol.

"Auror Shacklebolt, can you summon Lord Malfoy?" Harry asked the auror.

"Of course, Your Majesty."

Shacklebolt saluted, walked to the door, and stepped from the room. Harry barely noticed. Once again, thoughts consumed his attention, one thought in particular. _Luna Lovegood._ Why did she feel so familiar? How did she know him? Why could she speak directly to his mind? He had not even known that was possible until she did it.

A knock sounded at the door. Harry bade the knocker to enter.

Lucius Maldfoy, the proud Earl of Wellington, opened the door, stepped in, and bowed deeply, not speaking.

"Really, Lucius, you are the one who helped me get this position. It is not necessary for you to follow royal protocol when we are in private," Harry told the pale blond aristocrat.

"Your Majesty, it would not be proper for me to treat you any other way." Lucius frowned. "Besides, it will get you into practice of having people bow and scrape around you. From what I have discovered about your life with the muggles, I gather that you are far from used to even the slightest modicum of respect."

A flash of anger swelled up in Harry. How dare this man bring up the Dursleys and question his his personal life? He decided which topics were acceptable in conversation!

Quickly, the king gained control of the emotion and smothered it. The time for anger would come, but to achieve his desires, he had to keep it in check long enough for certain plans to come to fruition. He could not seem weak. Already, the Ministry wanted to install a regent to govern on his behalf. Adding fuel to the fire only further alienated him from the Ministry and the Wizengamot. At the moment, he needed them both.

"If you insist, Lord Wellington," Harry conceded, using the older wizard's formal title as Earl of Wellington. He vaguely noticed Shacklebolt slip back inside the room.

Lucius smiled slightly, though no warmth touched his eyes, and bowed his head slightly. "Thank you. That is most understandable." He looked up and cleared his throat. "What may I do for you, sir?

Harry rolled his eyes at the formalities and walked over to a pine writing desk across from the mirror. He sat down and looked out of a large window charmed to show the viewer the outside of Diagon Alley. The room was actually several meters underground. Currently, the street was only sparsely crowded.

"How is the Wizengamot reacting to the news of my ascension to the throne?" Harry asked, not wasting time.

Lucius shrugged. "There are, of course, a few dissenters, but in time, they will calm down and accept that you are the rightful king. Our world is not fast to change. People are comfortable in their positions of power and do not like seeing that another person might take that power from them."

"Are you one of those people, Lord Wellington?" Harry asked pointedly.

To Lucius's credit, the man did not pause before shaking his head and adding, "Of course not, sir. I am a loyal subject to the crown just as all Malfoys have been before me. As you know, my family has always been in service to the monarch, even when one did not sit upon the throne."

The king did know that. When they first met, Lucius explained to the young monarch that the Malfoys could trace their lineage back to French Royalty. As part of the deal that allowed another family besides his own to ascend to the French throne, a throne Harry would soon assume, the Malfoys were forever guaranteed a place of honor beside the ruling monarch so long as they remained loyal to the crown. Neither Lucius nor his relatives had ever fallen wayward from that path. Even during the time of Voldemort's reign of terror, the royal vow always held Lucius stronger than the vow he had taken to the Dark Lord. Should the king have come into the light at that time, he would have abandoned the Dark Lord without hesitation. At least, he had said as much to Harry, and at the moment, Harry had no choice but to accept his word as truth.

"I am glad for it, Lord Wellington; however, I have to ask a favor of you. I need your help procuring another ally that, quite frankly, I know nothing about," said Harry.

"Ah," Malfoy started. "And who is this ally, sire?"

Harry turned from the window to the still standing man, his green eyes deciphering the slight changes in Lucius's posture. Body language said so much about a person. The Accords could not decipher emotion, but it could tell him with relative accuracy what certain motions a man made might translate into. Lucius looked worried. _He doesn't want competition. He is hoping that I will be in his pocket like Fudge._

"The family I refer to possesses the surname Lovegood," the king answered.

To Harry's surprise, the normally composed aristocrat let out a sigh of annoyance, a strange reaction for one who almost never showed emotion. Another reaction to decipher. Perhaps fear? _What could scare Lucius?_

"Your Majesty, the Lovegoods are the type of people that you must not be seen mingling with. Their Head of House is an insane tabloid editor that insists on filling the public's mind with fantastical stories of beasts that do not exist. Their hereditary status in the Wizengamot is a stain on wizarding kind," Malfoy said plainly.

The Harry Potter that was an eleven year old first year at Hogwarts might have seen the bias in Lucius's words, but in the end, he probably would have listened to the older, more experienced wizard. The Harry Potter that recently escaped from Azkaban might have burnt the man alive for daring to contradict him. This Harry Potter was both and neither at the same time. His personality was comprised of a melding between the two identities, a melding sealed by a divine hand and the meddling of an old archwizard with an unhealthy addiction to manipulating others.

Harry narrowed his eyes, looking more imposing than an elven year old had a right to look. "I do not recall asking for your permission to befriend the Lovegoods, Lord Wellington. I merely wish to visit them. The young lady who attended their Head of House during the High Wizengamot session and I have a conversation to finish. You will help me."

Lucius's right hand, the one clutching a cane Harry knew to contain a wand, tightened. Harry did not brace for the spell. Shacklebolt would protect him. He did not fear Lucius Malfoy. Not very long ago, he had stared into the maul of desolation and death and threw fear away. The idea of a wizard causing him fear almost made him laugh.

"Are you confused, Lord Wellington?" Harry asked with a small smile.

"Forgive me, Your Majesty, but I believe you required my services to give you advice." Somehow, Lucius managed to speak through clenched teeth. "I am not accustomed to being spoken to with disrespect by an eleven year old." Lucius's grip on the cane did not loosen.

Harry's smile deepened. He stood. "Perhaps you will do well to remember who is in charge in this room, Lord Wellington. You may be a Malfoy, but I am the king." Harry cleared his throat, turned to the mirror, and adjusted his robes. He added to Malfoy, "Arrange for me to meet with the Lovegoods this afternoon. There is no need for them to come here. I will travel to them."

Lucius did not take the order well. He took a step towards Harry and said in a raised voice, "Now see here, boy-"

Harry spun on his heel. He did not have access to all his magic, but he called what power he could muster. It was enough that when the Malfoy Head met Harry's eyes, they were alive with green fire. The older man stopped in his tracks. He had only met one other person with eyes that glowed so bright; those eyes had glowed red.

"Do no doubt this, Lucius Malfoy. I have given you my word, and my word is law. You might be from a noble house, but the blood that runs through me has sired kings and mages greater than the likes of you have ever seen. Do not challenge me. I will not be merciful." Harry turned his head back towards Shacklebolt. "Auror Shacklebolt, escort Lord Wellington from the room. He has a task to complete. Should he refuse to comply with your instructions, have him arrested."

Shacklebolt replied without a word. Lucius Malfoy was too stunned to argue.

* * *

Malfoy pushed the auror's hand off his shoulder as soon as they were clear of the king's compartments. "I will not forget this, Shacklebolt."

The auror remained a stoic reminder of professionalism and did not take the offered bate. "Have a good day, sir," Shacklebolt said in a deep, rich voice.

It took all Malfoy could do not to spit at the feet of the elaborately dressed man. What wizard in their right mine wore stripe-patterned robes?

Angry clouds swarmed inside Malfoy's head as he stomped through the Ministry hallways. His intentions with Harry were falling apart. How did the brat grow such a backbone? The boy that appeared to him a few days earlier had been shrewd and cunning – coming up with the plan to gain the throne proved that much – but the boy had also been timid, a type easy to control. If not for that, Malfoy never would have agreed to help the brat.

_Now, he has me by the balls. If I am seen dissenting, then I will be labeled a fool by those who don't support him and a traitor by those who do. Either way, I have to follow him for the Malfoy name to survive._

The situation turned his stomach. He had been thoroughly played. Malfoys bowed for no one. Even though they were sworn to serve the royal line, they did so with about as much deference as a prince or princess on equal level with the sovereign. They gave their opinions freely and were not ordered to unpleasant tasks. They were advisors, not servants. If his ancestors saw him now, they would likely roll over in their graves and haunt him for the rest of eternity.

Still, not all hope was loss. Where one door closes, another opens, even if that door has to be pried open with a crowbar. Fortunately, the crowbar would not be needed in this incident. The king had provided him with a door hanging wide open.

It took Malfoy all of five minutes to leave the king's apartments and travel to a small office near the Wizengamot chambers. As a voting member of the legislative/judicial body, he was allowed to keep an office on Ministry grounds should the need arise for him to meet with members of the public or foreign dignitaries. The door, made of the cheapest wood the Ministry could find, held a plaque that read "Lucius Malfoy, Wizengamot" in bold black leathers. Several notes were attached to the plaque and door when he arrived. No doubt, most of them were old. He rarely visited the office. He bypassed the notes without a second look.

Two bookshelves containing random law books and a set of ancient encyclopedias ran the walls of the office. A battered, beaten desk sat in the center of the room. Two simple chairs rested across from the desk; behind it stood a large fireplace that took up a good three quarters of the wall.

Malfoy pulled his wand from his cane and lit the fire. It sprang to life in a spectrum of orange and yellow flames. He grabbed a bit of powder from the mantle and tossed it into the flames, turning the fire green. "Xenophilius Lovegood!" he barked.

A moment passed, then another. Malfoy almost shouted the name again when a face twisted into existence just over the top of the green flames. "What-" the face started before realizing who he was looking act. In a second, the annoyed glare Lovegood wore on his face faded to a wide-eyed expression of both fear and awe. "Mr. Malfoy," Lovegood whispered, voice shaking slightly. "What can I do for you?"

Malfoy smiled, recalling the crazy writer that owed the Malfoy family a great deal of money. Yes, the king had given him a mighty large door to walk through, indeed. "Zenophilius, I am calling to make good on your debt."

Xenophilius began to stutter, profusely expressing his inability to pay the debt he owed to Malfoy. After a moment, the stuttering turned to desperate pleads for mercy. Malfoy's smile deepened. "Ah, Lovegood," he said in a placating manner. "Do not worry. I come to you with a way that you can pay me back in full. All it requires is a small favor."

"A favor?" the stuttering man inquired, perking up hopefully. Then, he looked over his shoulder at something Lucius could not see. "I understand, sir, and I will gladly fulfill whatever request you have, but you see, I have quite a mess here at the house that I am trying to see too. My young daughter and all. You know how children can be. Can we meet at some other time to discuss this favor?"

Malfoy's smile vanished, quickly replaced by a scowl. No one cared about what Lovegood did with his daughter. Rumors of his abusive nature already existed in folds. Malfoy reached through the magical link and grabbed Lovegood by the collar. He pulled back, bringing the man's head forth from the fireplace. "This is not negotiable, Lovegood. You will fulfill this favor now, or I will have to result to more convincing measures."

The scared wizard nodded fervently, swallowing and blinking away discomfort and pain as he did.

"Good," Malfoy said icily. He dropped the man's collar, allowing Lovegood to fall back through the fire to his home. "It is about our new king…"

* * *

Two hours later, Malfoy walked back to the king's compartments. The Minister of Magic greeted him casually along the way, fake political niceties winning out over any disagreements the two might harbor regarding Harry as king. The boy king did not even come up.

Malfoy approached the compartment door and knocked. An awaiting attendant quickly ushered him inside. Moments later, he stood before the king. This time, the boy was not wearing wizarding robes. Instead, he wore a muggle suit. Lucius tried not to wrinkle his nose but failed miserably. How could he ever have supported a king that wore muggle clothing? The boy disrespected every pureblood tradition just by donning such clothing.

"Ah, Lucius, welcome back. Do you approve of Armani?" the boy asked. He spun around, showing off the new Italian suit.

"Of course, Your Majesty," Malfoy managed to reply, though the reply left a bitter taste in his mouth. _Only a few more hours, then I can bury this part of the past like have all the other mistakes._

"Good," Harry said. "I trust you have arranged our meeting?"

Malfoy nodded. "We can leave immediately, sire. They are expecting us."

_Lovegood better be ready._

* * *

Xenophilius Lovegood looked down at the naked form of his eleven year old daughter. A small tear dripped from the corner of his eyes. He really did love the girl. Sure, she had her moments, but in all honesty, he loved her. He just wanted to make sure she did not turn out like her mother. Her mother was dangerous.

Serena Lovegood had been a great woman. Few people in the world doubted her ability with magic. Of course, those people had not known her like he had. Serena was not human. She could not have been. The power she wielded was too great. He knew what she really was: a demon. Only a demon could do the things she did.

And so it was that he looked down at his daughter with the same thoughts. Luna was half-human, half-demon. He had to bring out the human side in her and crush the demonic side before she hurt anyone else like Ginny Weasley. One witch harmed by his daughter was one too many.

His daughter tried to struggle against the bonds that held her wrists and ankles down on the bed, but the arcane runes carved into the wooden four-poster bed held against her potent magic. The rune was the same rune that he had used to contain Serena the night she died. This time he would not fail. He knew how to bring out the human, the same way he had with Serena. His daughter would not die like her mother. He would save her.

With that in mind, his hand traced up the inside of her leg, moving higher with each heavy breath Luna tried to struggle with. He thought he saw tears in her eyes.

"Don't worry, my dear," he whispered as his fingers reached their target. "Daddy will make things better. After all, the king is coming over to play."

* * *

They did not apparate or use the floo. Malfoy explained that the wards around the Lovegood Estate prevented any sort of magical transportation, a very common defensive ward around ancestral homes belonging to older families. During Voldemort's rise, both sides employed the use of such wards to prevent attacks either from deatheaters or aurors. In the end and much to Malfoy's displeasure, they took a muggle car, specifically a Rolls-Royce Phantom VI, a car whose prestige was completely lost on Malfoy.

They arrived at an odd looking building shaped like a large shoe. No one spoke while Harry looked at the house, trying to determine how the walls were able to support themselves considering the strange angles they bent at. In the end, he chalked it up to his lack of knowledge concerning the wizarding world. Despite what the Accords could tell him about his power and his heritage, he still lacked a modern magical education. That needed to be fixed in the near future.

The car slowed to a stop about two hundred meters from the home. Harry looked at Malfoy and raised an eyebrow in question.

"The wards start here, Your Majesty. If we take the car any further, the magic will interfere with the muggle equipment. I would prefer not to have to walk home," Malfoy replied.

Harry nodded as an auror came around and opened the door for him. Malfoy followed him out of the car.

"Myself and Auror Shacklebolt will go with His Majesty," Malfoy told the grey eyed auror who had opened the door. The auror, John Dawlish, did not look comfortable with the suggestion but acquiesced after a nod from Harry.

"Someone has to stay with the car. If you are needed, we will be able to get you a message," Harry said, happy to be free of one of his watchers. It had taken every negotiating trick he knew to stop another car of aurors from following them. 'After all,' he had told them, 'Lucius and two aurors will be with me. Who wants to fight a Malfoy?' As it turned out, no one wanted to fight a Malfoy or anyone else who used to be an inner circle deatheater.

The trio of wizards walked up to the house, led by Shacklebolt who had a bored look on his face. Harry relaxed his nerves a little. If the overprotective auror was not nervous about the Lovegood home, then Harry should not be either, no matter the fact that he was about to see a girl who was able to communicate directly with his mind. _Luna Lovegood. _Why did that name send shivers down his spine?

They reached the door. It was heavy stone, much like the rest of the house. Who has a stone door?

"As I said, Your Majesty, they are quite strange," Malfoy called from behind Harry, answering the unspoken question.

Shacklebolt did not seem to notice. He pulled out his wand and tapped it lightly on the stone door. A moment later, it cracked and a man in his late thirties or early forties popped his head in the opening, white hair sticking out at all ends. He stared at Harry and company with wide, inquisitive eyes that did not stay on one color.

Suddenly, the door flew open, making Harry jump slightly. The man loped from the house and held his arms out wide as if to embrace Harry. "Your Majesty! Welcome to my home!"

* * *

Malfoy rolled his eyes at the eccentric wizard's antics. If there was ever an individual he hated working with, it was Xenophilius Lovegood, but the man got results. He always completed the tasks Malfoy assigned him, no matter how complicated. Even better, he never told Malfoy how he completed those tasks.

"Err," Harry responded to Lovegood's response.

_So eloquent, _Malfoy thought.

Shacklebolt's wand answered better than the king ever could have, however. It found its way directly beneath the white haired wizard's nose. "If I were you, Mr. Lovegood, I would move a bit slower when addressing your king."

Lovegood did not show even the slightest sign of affront at Shacklebolt's order. Instead, he played the part perfectly. Cautiously, he backed off, a slight whimper coming from his lips. "Of course," he said weakly. "I meant no harm to His Majesty. I only wanted to be friendly." He bowed his head, allowing his ragged white hair to fall over his eyes and cover his face as he stepped back inside, ushering them inside. "Please, please. Come in! Forgive me my impropriety!"

The king shook his head and entered ahead of the two others, put at ease by Lovegood's groveling, just as Malfoy expected he would be. Kingsley followed second, then Malfoy, who shut the door behind him.

Malfoy felt the curse trigger as soon as the door closed. _Impressive. Lovegood always was skilled with rune magic, especially traps._ Harry appeared to feel nothing, but Shacklebolt did. He leapt forward, throwing Harry aside and putting his body in the path of the massive green wave that erupted through the room. The auror fell to the ground, dead.

"Damn it all, Lovegood," Malfoy cursed. That was not the plan. The spell should have killed Harry, not the auror. Malfoy pulled his wand, but Lovegood beat him to it. No sooner had Harry clambered back to his feet than Lovegood's spell hit him in the chest.

Malfoy relaxed. At least the dirty work was done. He only had to take care of Dawlish. It should not be hard to bribe the man. If not, a memory charm would serve to show this off as an accident.

"Is he dead?" Malfoy asked without emotion. Malfoys never showed emotion in the face of death. The cold façade never faded.

Lovegood shook his head. "He will be. It will take some time to set this up. I need you to take care of the other auror and the Ministry."

Malfoy looked from Lovegood to the unconscious king and back to Lovegood. He did not trust Lovegood, but he did not trust anyone. Besides, he did not want to be the one who actually killed the king. So far he could convince himself that his actions had not violated his oath to the royal line; however, if he did the bloody deed, that was another story.

"Fine," Malfoy said. "Just have it done. We both have a lot riding on this Lovegood."

Lovegood smiled sadistically and bowed. "Of course, Lord Malfoy. Your promise to hold my debts paid?"

Malfoy nodded. "Done as soon as I have proof."

With that, Malfoy turned and left the house to take care of Dawlish and return to the Ministry. In a few hours, a power vacuum that had never existed before would come about. It was the perfect opening for the Malfoy family to once again possess the throne they had held so long ago.

_Long live the king._

* * *

Black spots swam in Harry's vision. At first he felt nothing. That feeling did not last as a tremendous pain exploded in his chest. The pain served to clear his vision and send the room spiraling into focus. He tried to fight back a wave of nausea, but the vomit came up anyway, forcing its way through his clenched teeth and doubling him over in a fit of gags that painted the floor in front of him with yellow bile. The pain in his chest hit again with renewed vigor.

Harry tried to move, but ropes held him firmly in place. He blinked away the nausea and pain. After a second, the hysteria cleared some. He tried to raise an arm. It did not move. His arms, legs, and waist were strapped to a chair.

"What the hell," he croaked hoarsely.

"Please, Your Majesty, do not exert yourself. I want you to enjoy this."

Harry scanned the room for the voice. The light in the room was so dim that all he could see was the edge of an object that appeared to be a bed. The object moved slightly as if someone was getting off of it. A man came into view at the edge of the light.

"Ah," he said. "I forgot about the lighting. Forgive me."

The man muttered words Harry could not understand. All at once, candles and a fireplace flared to life, lighting the room completely. Harry almost vomited again at what he saw.

His eyes went first to the girl. She lay on a massive four-poster bed that fit well against the far wall of the large room, though it was difficult to make out her features due to the several folds of silky white curtains that hung from the bed's canopy. The curtains were closed save for the one on the side the man had come from. He tore his eyes from the girl and rested them on the white haired man.

"Lovegood," Harry spat venomously.

For a brief second, Lovegood actually look taken aback, as if he had not expected such hostility from an eleven year old boy. That look passed, though, and was replaced by a condescending smile. "Well, I can see from the get-go that this will not go my way." He shifted his hips, placing most his weight on one foot and his left hand on the opposite hip. He held a wand in his right hand. The fingers were bloody. "That is most unfortunate. I had hoped that there might be a way to save you and use you against Malfoy." The white haired wizard trembled and shook his head. "Alas, it is not to be so." He shifted his hips again and brought his wand-tip to the bit of skin between Harry's eyes. "Ava-"

"Wait!" Harry shouted, not expecting the man to actually stop.

Surprisingly, Lovegood stopped and straightened as ordered. "Wait?" he asked quizzically, cocking his head at angle to look at Harry sideways. "Why would I wait?"

"How would you use me?" Harry asked quickly, desperately trying to think of something to forestall his death.

Lovegood's eyes literally lit up at the question, the irises rapidly changing from one color to another. He brought a hand up to his gaping mouth. "It can't be!" he exclaimed. "Have I found another believer?"

"Yes," Harry exclaimed with a nod, latching onto the line of conversation.

"Hmm," Lovegood replied pensively. "Very well, if you are a believer, what is the square root of sixteen?"

"Four…" Harry replied tentatively.

"Yes!" the man exclaimed with a clap. "You are a believer! Then you must see what I have done!"

Lovegood spun on his heel with a squeal of glee and waved his wand. The silky white curtains moved aside with the man's wand and exposed a scene that almost made Harry vomit again. Upon the bed did, indeed, lay a girl, but she was not there willingly. Her wrists and ankles had been bound with ropes that dug into her flesh. She was naked. Blood covered the top of her legs. It appeared to have come from her-

Harry thought of the blood on the fingers of Lovegood's right hand. _That sick bastard. _He really did vomit this time.

Lovegood did not seem to notice. He walked over to the bed and traced his wand up and down the girl's body. She tried to move away from it but the bonds that held her refused to give. "Your Majesty," the crazy wizard started with a gleam in his eyes, "please allow me to introduce you to my daughter." He brushed the side of her face gently with the back of his hand. "I know that you, as a believer, can appreciate what is happening here. I am going to be the first person to ever successfully remove the demonic half of a half-human, half-demon! And to think, I have the king here to watch me!"

The pressure in Harry's chest doubled, the pain increasing along with it. He struggled to break free of the chair, but he could not budge. "Luna!" he cried, recognizing the girl as the one who had spoken to his mind. He tried to push out with his mind and find her presence again, but he hit a solid wall that did not feel like his normal magic barrier. A purple haze floated over the top of the bed. The Accords fed him information. A ward. A very powerful ward.

Lovegood apparently noticed his bulging eyes. "Ah, do not worry, Your Majesty. The demon will not harm you." He pointed at the purple haze. "That ward could dampen the powers of a god. No demon will break through that. In the ancient days, we used it to control the high elves and fae. They are all demigods, you know. Terribly powerful lot."

He understood. Basically, Luna could not use her power to escape or communicate with him. Harry yanked against the bonds futilely.

"No need to exert yourself," Lovegood said. "I will release you as soon as you have been tempered. After all, I can't have you returning to the Ministry with your free will. You will be no good to me then. I just need to finish with my beautiful daughter, and I will be able to move to you."

The man looked back to Luna, a strange, predatory look gleaming in his eyes in the same way the sparkle twinkled in Dumbledore's. His hand traced patterns in the blood on Luna's leg as it started its trek up it. "Shhh, lovely one," he whispered to his crying daughter. "The demon must be driven away."

Just then, through the purple ward and the sickening man, a single word escaped Luan's lips, a word she never should have been able to utter but did. "Harry."

The blackness took Harry. Only, he did not lose consciousness. Instead, he saw himself in his Azkaban cell. He saw the chains on the wall holding him to the stone by his wrists. He saw the blocks on his magic. He saw the shadows parting as dementors came forth to take his soul. And just like that Harry Potter broke. Everything within him, every desire and emotion, came up in a single cry that tore through his body and exploded from his voice.

"I WILL NOT BE CHAINED!"

His yell shook the foundations of the shoe-shaped house and rattled the walls and floors. It even knocked the twisted older wizard from his feet and left him sprawled on the floor staring at a broken chair that no longer held the Boy-Who-Lived.

Harry stood in the middle of the room. He cast aside the remains of the bindings and held out his hand. He had returned to the chains. Someone had held him against his will despite everything. The entire world had continued while he sat frozen against his will, unable to move. The bonds returned.

But he beat them.

Fire flew from his hand in a long vine-like a whip. It wrapped around Xenophilius Lovegood, burning skin and clothing where it touched. Lovegood howled. He wiggled. He begged for death.

Harry did not let him. Harry let the fire eat and gnaw until the places it touched were nothing but bone. Then he forced the fire to enter what remained of the man's body. Harry poured more of his power into the fire, reaching past the shambles of the barrier Dumbledore tried to place, reaching past the limits he had once known, reaching past what was humanly possible.

The man that had once been Xenophilius Lovegood exploded into a figure of flaming fire. No blood splatted. No gore fell. Only the tongues of otherworldly heat and flame gave any sign that a body had once been there. Harry held out his hand and closed it into a fist. Then, even the fire blinked away, leaving nothing behind.

He ran to Luna, crossing the room in two strides. His hands came down on her face, cupping it like he would a lost lover. For some reason, he felt pulled to her. He felt a yearning. No name for the word came to his mouth, but inside he knew what it was; though, he had no reason to feel it. Still, he knew.

Love.

He loved Luna Lovegood.

He reached out with his power and struck at the purple ward, but just as he was about to bring it down, Luna whispered, "No. You can't. It will kill us both."

Harry was not listening. He did not care about dying. He only cared to save Luna. He knew of a single place in the world that might help her, the single medical ward he had ever spent any time in. With a great flex of power, he grabbed at the ward that had contained elves and fae and yanked it apart in a terrible explosion of magic and wood. Waves of power flowed through the room and struck at both him and Luna. Again, he did not notice.

He grabbed the woman he loved and reality twisted away.

* * *

Poppy Pomfrey might have been one of the greatest healers of her age, and she might have seen quite a great deal, but nothing could have prepared the grey haired witch for what happened that night. She had been doing her rounds, checking on the few patients she had, when out of nowhere, a gong sounded and a great sucking went through the medical ward. Next, what appeared to be a hole opened up directly in front of her. From it stepped a glowing boy with unruly black hair and bold green eyes. The man carried a convulsing, naked young girl covered in blood, bruises, and lacerations.

Her first reaction was to curse the boy and run for the help, but then she realized that the strange boy was, in fact, her king, Harry Potter! Her mouth dropped open.

Meanwhile, said king gently laid the convulsing girl on the nearest bed, turned to the healer, grabbed her by the shoulders, and yelled, "Good God, woman, heal her!"

Being yelled at in her own ward was not something the healer was accustomed to, but it did shock her out of her stupor. She pushed past the king and raced to the girl, throwing floo powder from her apron into the fireplace as she ran and calling, "Severus! Minerva! I need blood clotting potions now!"

She waved her wand. A quick scan made her blink. The girl was saturated with so much magic that the spell did not work right. It came back showing that almost all the bones in her body were shattered and several organs had ruptured, but that could not be possible. She would not be alive if it were. The child was clearly breathing, although barely. With each breath, blood came up. Her eyes were fluttering and her body somehow held itself in a rigid pose despite the shattered bones.

Snape and McGonagall stepped through the fireplace, both looking flustered. A look at the girl on the bed garnered gasps of surprise from both of them.

"Poppy, what-" McGonagall started, but Madam Pomfrey cut her off.

"Stabilizing charms, now!"

The transfiguration mistress did not have to be told twice. She began casting the charm as Snape tried to feed the patient the blood replenishing potion.

"She's not responding!" Snape yelled.

"I can see that, damn it. Don't stop!" Pomfrey screamed back, but she knew it was hopeless. Even as they fought to save the girl's life, the curtain of death seemed to fall. She raged against it, but in the end, there was nothing she could do.

The girl was too damaged.

Five minutes passed.

Ten minutes.

Half an hour.

The girl died.

Three exhausted attendants slumped against the bed, exhausted, unable to prolong the inevitable.

"Why are you stopping?" Harry asked.

For the first time, Snape and McGonagall noticed who else stood in the room with them. Both went pale, even Snape. They saw the blood on their king. The girl's blood.

"Your Majesty, I-" Madam Pomfrey whispered.

"Why are you stopping?" Harry yelled, cutting her off, despair written into every line on his face.

"There's nothing I can do. S-she's gone," Madam Pomfrey answered, her voice even quitter than before.

The King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland stared at her, lost for words. Tears streamed down his cheeks. With a pained voice, he said, "No."

Trembling, the king walked over to the bed. The girl lay peaceful, the hand of death finally having calmed her thrashing body. Normally, Poppy would have said that death was better than the pain the girl had been in, but looking at the face of her king, she felt nothing but sorrow, almost as if he was somehow sharing his despair with her. She had no idea that the other two professors in the room felt the same thing.

Harry placed his hands on the girl's shoulders. "No," he whispered again.

"Mr. Potter," McGonagall called, stepping forward to comfort the ailing boy. Something hard snapped in place before her, an invisible wall holding her at bay.

"No," Harry said, his voice rising.

"Oh dear," Poppy muttered. He turned to look at the others. "He's using magic. He's trying to heal her."

"But she's dead!" McGonagall exclaimed.

"No!" Harry yelled. The air around him shimmered. The fires in the fireplaces flared. Candles flickered. The windows rattled.

"NO!"

Harry placed his hands on the girl's chest. Lightening, bright and white hot, crackled from his fingers and plunged into her skin. He flung more and more energy into, willing her to live, refusing to allow her body to break down under his magic.

The girl twitched.

McGonagall gasped. "Necromancy."

"NO!" The entire castle shook beneath the thunder of his voice. The power from the castle wards bent and shattered. The ambient magic in the walls sped from the stone that had housed it for generations and entered the young king. All at once, the powers of earth and sky exploded from his hands and tore into the girl that had moments ago breathed her last.

And then, as soon as it had started, the maelstrom of magic ceased. The cloud of death and burning faded away. It was Severus Snape that described best what the three adults saw.

"No, Minerva. Necromancy cannot do that."

Harry Potter sat on the edge of the bed holding a crying, breathing, and very much alive blonde girl with vivid grey eyes. Violating every law of magic in existence, Harry Potter had given true life to the dead.

* * *

In a prison cell on the other side of the country, a certain elderly wizard, who was not a wizard at all, felt the aftershocks of the massive feat. He did not doubt what happened. He merely hung his head.

The barriers were gone.

**A/N: Another chapter has come and gone. The next update will not be so far away. Please read and REVIEW! Tell me what you think, even if it is just a yes or no. Also, if you have any good reading suggestions regarding Percy Jackson or HP fanfics, even if they are your own, please let me know so I can check them out. Quality fanfic is hard to find.**


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer: I do not own this. JK Rowling owns this.**

**A/N: This is a short chapter, but I wanted to post something before I go to work as it might be a couple of weeks before I get a chance to write more. There is a question at the author's note at the end. Please read it. Thanks for enjoying my writing!  
**

**Chapter Sixteen**

In a prison cell on the other side of the country, a certain elderly wizard, who was not a wizard at all, felt the aftershocks of the massive feat. He did not doubt what happened. He merely hung his head.

The barriers were gone.

And the world was exposed.

A laugh traveled through the cell, clear and rich like the laugh of a man enjoying the present his children gave him for Christmas. Was he hearing things? Had the burden of mortality finally caught up with him? Had he, the immortal soul, had finally cracked?

"No, you old fool. No one would give you the release of insanity."

Dumbledore hung his head at the sound of the voice speaking, the same voice that had laughed. Perhaps insanity was not such a bad thing. At least then he would not have had to hear that voice.

"Why are you here?" Dumbledore asked. He sat on a bench facing the cell door. His cell did not have chains in it. The room was fairly clean. He did not suffer the same conditions Harry Potter had at age eleven.

From the shadows of darkness that waited in the corner of the cell, a figure of black stepped out. He did not wear black as clothes, but he wore skin and hair that could only be called such; for, it was the darkest shade of black, the color of the sky on the darkest, most starless night. Only two orbs of glittering white interrupted the black. The orbs were supposed to be white, but no being, alive or dead, had such white eyes. No red, no iris. Only white. Upon his skin he wore armor the color of crimson blood. Dumbledore knew that armor had been dipped in the blood of those like him, the fallen.

"I am here," said the archangel, "to see how you have fared. It seems that no matter what life you take, you are still a failure, a second to better beings. In the end, no matter the glory you rise to, you are still mortal."

Dumbledore shook his head. He would not let Michael bait him. "This is not about me, Michael. You did this. Everything that is happening is because of you."

Michael's face twisted into one of mock horror. He put a hand to his breastplate dramatically. "Old friend, you wound me! How could you think that this is my doing? You are the one who went back in time. You are the one who tried to change fate."

"No, Michael. I will not let you blame this on me," the old wizard whispered. He held his forehead in his hands. His elbows balanced on his thighs.

Michael's laugh again carried through the cell. It did not pierce the desolate space on the other side of the door. No sound left the room. "Blame you? No, old friend, you are mistaken! I do not wish to blame the great Albus Dumbledore! I wish to thank you! It is only because you tampered with time that this could have been possible."

The archangel crossed the room and sat down beside Dumbledore. He placed a hand on Dumbledore's dirty grey prison robes. "Don't you see what you did? Before, Harry only went after England. He acted out of vengeance and that wizarding alley burned as a result. Now? Now, all of humanity will suffer because you gave him the broader picture and the chance to do it."

Dumbledore looked up, color draining from his face. Something finally clicked, something he had not dared to dream. Could be true? It would mean a change to everything. The entire universe hung in the balance, teetering on a knife's edge. "He is not involved, is He?" Dumbledore did not mean Harry.

This was bigger than Harry.

Michael smiled. "Does that make me the villain?"

The pale face of an old wizard answered. "You were already the villain, Michael. You sent Harry to Azkaban in the first place! Why don't you leave him alone? Don't you realize what he is capable of? I've been working to prevent that! All this was about saving this world. You've thrown it all away! For what purpose, Michael? How can you – YOU! – condemn all of humanity?"

Michael shrugged, casually brushing off Dumbledore's accusations. "Because humanity has reached its end. There is nothing left for it. The world ends and with it evil will die. There will be no more wars for me to fight for those who don't appreciate it. I won't be a silly errand boy any longer."

Dumbledore stood, shoving the angel's hand from his knee. "This is about pride?"

"No. That is what you never understood, old friend. It has nothing to do with pride. It has to do with what is right and wrong."

The old archwizard frowned. All the anger left him. Right and wrong. How many times had he asked himself that same question? How many times had he screamed it at the Almighty? He, the wandering god, never without thought or answer, could not face that one question and be victorious. The prison cell that housed him meant nothing. It was made of four stone walls. Those walls were his to leave standing or destroy. A prison could not contain him, even in the cursed state he existed. Right and wrong, however, contained him better than any chain or wall. It kept him from making decisions to free himself from the constant circle he had been cursed to endure. A simple belief, a vocal of acknowledgement of that belief, and he would be free, his world returned to him as he had not known it in centuries.

"I am beginning to think that there is no right and wrong," Dumbledore said. "I can almost convince myself to believe that the words mean nothing so long as I have back what you took from me, but then I look at you. Wrong has never known a more ardent supporter and mascot."

Again, Michael laughed the rich laugh that seemed so twisted coming from such a creature. "That has always been the problem with the lesser gods, you know? Humanity is easily fooled. They think angels are pure and innocent. You all? You see us as we are. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do about it. We took that ability from you when we came."

Dumbledore shook his head. "No, Michael. You think you have won. It might seem like you have, but I know Harry Potter. I know his mind better than you think. He killed last time because your hand guided him. He will not fall so easily this time."

"You do not know humans as I do," Michael argued. His voice did not hold doubt.

"If you think that they will give up so easy, then you know very little."

The angel stood. "Old friend, you do not understand. It is not me who will make him give up."

* * *

Luna had slept for three days. Harry stayed by her the entire time.

Several people tried to see him, but the motherly matron that was Madam Pomfrey did not allow anyone to disturb her Hospital Wing, no exceptions. Well, there might have been one. After all, she did let the king in, but who could refuse the king?

At first, Harry was grateful for her insistence at keeping others away, but eventually, the more he thought of it, the more amusing he found it. For all her good traits, he doubted that he admired a single one quite so much as her ability to scare away possible disturbers of patients. He needed the time she gave him.

One would think that after spending so much time in Azkaban that Harry would never want to be alone again. Harry had thought that to be true. But in the quiet of the Hospital Wing he discovered that the silence wrapped around him like an old friend, providing a security he had not realized he missed. For the first time in days, people either trying to win his favor or desperately asking for his help did not surround him. The silence made him wonder why he wanted the crown. What did it gain him? Was it all worth it?

He looked to the sleeping girl on the hospital bed next to his chair. She wore a hospital gown. Her skin looked particularly pale against the thin white fabric. She looked so small, so fragile. She appeared weak. He knew better. Three days ago, while he poured his magic inside her dead body, he could feel the vast emptiness left behind by her presence. Then, as the first flicker of life appeared and he started to pull away, he felt the overwhelming power caged within her physical frame. Her strength was like lightening, uncontrollable and furious. No, he did not want the crown because of her.

He did not want the crown for anyone. No one could grant it to him; no one could give it to him. The crown was his by birth. He owned it whether they liked it or not. That's why he wanted it. He knew the public would not willingly recognize him as king. Why would they want to put someone over them? No. That's why Malfoy had so easily betrayed him. The crown had only been given to him. That would not stand forever. The ambitious would always try to take from him what was his birthright. He only had one option.

The throne might be his by birth, but he had to prove it was his to keep. That started by addressing those who did not take him seriously. Malfoy would have to be dealt with first. Dissenters could not be left alone. They were dangers to his rule, a rule that had to get tougher.

Harry stood and walked over to the one window at the end of the room. It was large and let in a lot of light. The curtains were pulled back. He could see the countryside, its rolling hills and the river stretching through the Forbidden Forest and pouring into the Great Lake. The sky was a pale blue, not like the cloudy grey common to this time of year. Fluffy white clouds moved slowly across the horizon, capping the highlands with misty crowns.

This was his country. A queen ruled it by the will of the people. The people gave her legitimacy. Did his rule have that same legitimacy? Did the people sing about his graces and glory like so many muggle Brits did about their queen?

No. They did not. The wizarding world was too divided. He would have to bring them together through the power of his fists. The songs they would sing about him would not be flattering.

A door opened and closed behind him.

"Good morning, Your Majesty."

"Good morning, Madam Pomfrey," Harry said automatically, without turning around.

"Did you sleep well, sir?" the matron asked as she began the motions of the day. She did not bother to stop even for the king. Briefly, Harry wondered if she would have stopped for a king who had taken the throne by force. Probably not.

"As well as one can expect when sleeping in a chair," he told her.

Madam Pomfrey sighed. "Your Majesty, you are free to use one of the beds. I've told you that. Sleeping in a chair is not good for you."

He turned and gave the woman a kind smile. She did not worry out of obligation or say such things to earn his favor. She said what she said out genuine concern. How many people did Harry know that pandered to him either because he was the Boy-Who-Lived or because he was the king?

"Thank you for your concern, Madam Pomfrey," he told her.

"Of course, sir," she said absently. She looked over the only other patient in the room, a small girl on the opposite side of the long room from Luna. Harry had passed her several times; he had never seen her awake. The matron sighed. "Not good."

Harry's curiosity peaked. "What is wrong with her?"

Madam Pomfrey looked up, her face confused. "You have not heard? I would have thought that they would have told you about Miss Granger."

Harry froze. _Hermione?_ After all these years, all this time, he had forgotten. Time travel messed everything up. He had forgot about Hermione. He thought back to the whispers that condemned him so many years before. It was a different lifetime, but he remembered her clearly. She was running as they took him away, fear and tears on her face. She did not want to condemn him.

_Hermione. _His friend.

Harry walked across the room quickly, but it felt like he was moving through syrup. The world slowed down, seconds inching past in the span of minutes. He saw her then. How had he not recognized her before? She looked so pale, so young, but shouldn't he remember the girl that had entered his compartment on the way to Hogwarts to inquire about a toad?

"How did this happen?" he asked, now standing by Hermione, opposite of Madam Pomfrey. Not giving it conscious thought, he took her hand. As he did, he felt a spark, a spark that cracked through the haze of sudden love he felt toward Luna.

Madam Pomfrey had not taken her eyes from the king since he asked whom the girl was. She still looked shocked. "She followed you when you fled Hogwarts, Your Majesty. We found her in the snow, nearly froze to death. I have tried everything, but nothing works. Experts from St. Mungo's have evaluated her condition to no effect."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Nothing works? Where are her parents?"

Madam Pomfrey swallowed. "The Headmaster thought it best not to tell them until we knew more."

"What?" he asked n a dangerously low tone. They had not told her parents! How could Dumbledore have felt that was the best? A parent had a right to know about their child, especially parents as loving as Hermione's appeared to be.

"He thought it might cause a panic among the muggleborn students' parents. He thought it would be better to tell them once we knew something."

Harry's eyes narrowed though he did not take them off Hermione. For some reason, he could not look away. "Summon Professor McGonagall."

"Sir?" Madam Pomfrey questioned.

"Summon Professor McGonagall," he told her again. "I want this handled immediately."

Madam Pomfrey did not agree with being ordered around. It was all well and good that he was the king, but did she honestly have to take it from an eleven year old. "I think we should-"

Harry looked up. Madam Pomfrey stepped back, bringing a hand to her mouth. He stared at her, not saying another word. He did not have to. As he looked at the healer, she remembered the unleashed, wild magic that he had commanded. She remembered the dead rise at his order as no necromancer had ever done before. She remembered the power.

She turned towards the fireplace and obeyed.

The king did not spare another glance at the woman. He knelt beside Hermione's bed, bringing her hand to his face and pressing it against his cheek. "How have I let it come to this?" he asked aloud. "I am supposed to be a king. How can I rule a people when my best friend almost dies and I do not notice? How did you feel when I went to Azkaban, Hermione? Did you cry? Did you notice my absence? It seems that I did not notice yours."

He bowed his head. "Forgive me," he whispered. His voice floated out like a leaf on a fall breeze. It drifted through the air, bobbing and weaving until it touched the ears of the young girl whose hand he held so tightly. "I will not forget you again."

With those words he stood. The fire inside of him died, but as it died, it left behind something that had not been there before, something he desperately needed. Before, the horrors of abandonment and hurt remained as a scar on his psyche. Those he thought were his friends had betrayed him and cursed his name. Here, proven by the evidence of her fallen body, was a friend who had tried to follow him, a friend who did not condemn him. Her loyalty to him had stepped through the flames of his rage and cooled them. In its wake, steel remained, forged by flame and devotion.

When Professor McGonagall entered, she met the eyes of a man who knew himself to be king and did not doubt or question the reason why. She met the eyes of a ruler who would take Britain by storm not for himself, but for all those who were treated as second class. She saw the steel of a man with conviction and purpose. She saw the reckoning.

"You wanted to see me, Mr. Potter," McGonagall said, using the same tone she always used on a student. She did not see this boy in front of her any different. They might have given him a title, but as long as he stood in this school, he was her student.

Harry did not flinch at the lack of respect in her voice. He did not need it from her now. "Why did you not tell her parents?"

"Mr. Potter, Miss Granger's health is not a matter that concerns you. I will not discuss the decisions made about the welfare of another student with you. I will only discuss such decisions with her guardians," McGonagall answered sternly.

He did not argue. Instead, he changed paths. "You are the Headmistress of the school now that Dumbledore is gone."

"Yes," she answered proudly. "The Board of Governors appointed me just yesterdays. The wards have already been transferred to my care."

He nodded. "I am assuming Hogwarts Castle."

"Excuse me?" McGonagall said. Madam Pomfrey stared at Harry in horror.

"It is, after all, the royal residence," Harry pointed out.

"Mr. Potter!" McGonagall exclaimed. "Hogwarts has not been used as a royal residence for almost an entire millennia!"

Harry smiled. It was not a challenging grin. He spoke his words slowly. "I am the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. By right of my crown, I assume the grounds of Hogwarts Castle as my own royal residence, taking up the home of my ancestors and predecessors. I name myself as Regent of this school and take up my place as Chancellor."

The castle groaned, brick and stone shaking. A small clap sounded around them. Harry felt the wards shift to his control. Suddenly, he could feel every barrier around the school as if he was physically touching them. Details of students, teachers, ghosts, and a plethora of other beings rushed to him. His home responded to his wishes.

McGonagall stared at the boy king the same way she had when she watched him raise Luna Lovegood from the dead. She did not see the eleven-year-old boy anymore. As the loss of the wards set into her mind and she realized what had happened, McGonagall almost lost her footing. It took all she could not to faint. "B-but-"

Harry raised his hand. "You will call upon the Grangers, now. You will tell them what happened, and you will make arrangements for them to come here. I will not allow secrets and lies to continue. Hogwarts has known them too long."

The stern woman tried to object, tried to voice some sort of argument, but she found that she could not. With no choice in the matter, she nodded her head and went off to obey.

Harry did not look at Madam Pomfrey or the retreating Deputy Headmistress. He turned back down to Hermione.

Her eyes were open.

* * *

"I think it is you who do not understand, Michael. No one can make him give up. He has too much passion. Humans do not simply give up," Dumbledore countered, his fist clenched at his side.

"Ah, but you name is flaw with those words," Michael told the old wizard. "His passion is his greatest undoing. My agents will see to that."

"What do you mean?" Dumbledore asked.

Michael smiled. "Do you think she could actually love him, old friend? You know her even better than I do. She does not have the capacity."

Dumbledore's eyes widened. He shook his head. "No, her humanity will win out in this! You can't hope to unleash her."

Michael laughed. "You fool, she is already unleashed. She has no humanity left. The boy saw to that himself. Only, he does not know that she is my pawn and that he is hers."

Dumbledore stepped back until he hit the wall. He was shaking his head fervently. "No," he said in a shocked whisper. "You can't!"

"What?" Michael asked. "Do you fear her evil?"

Dumbledore looked at the angel sadly. "She is not evil, Michael. With her, there is no evil. That is not a term that she knows. With her, there is only ending."

Michael nodded. "So you begin to understand." He walked over to Dumbledore and grasped the old man on the shoulders. "It is time for the end."

**A/N: Short chapter, but I had to get it out before I went to work. Sorry about the length, but I promise the next to be longer. Anyway, I want your opinion. I am at a crossroads with Hermione/Luna, so I decided to let you guys decide. I want to throw another female character in the dynamic but I can't decide how. Should this be Harry/Hermione/Luna… Harry/ Luna… Harry/Hermione… Harry/Luna/Hermione/Miranda… Harry/Miranda, or should I go ahead and put the king with several girls, if so, the choices, in addition to Hermione and Luna, are Daphne Greengrass, Susan Bones, Hannah Abbot, Ginny, Tonks, Padme Patil, Pavarti Patil, Astoria Greengrass, Fleur Delacour, and/or Gabrielle Delacour. Vote for your choices and review!**


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